Sunday, July 13, 2014

Crowdsourcing cite on the History of Foreign Relations Law as Administrative Law

In the essay I'm writing about legal history as diplomatic history, I have this short passage noting that a lot of the law pertaining to U.S. international affairs consists of federal regulations. Title 10 of the U.S. Code pertaining to the armed forces is just one aspect. But foreign relations law sources (at least that I've checked so far) don't cover administrative law, and my research is not turning up helpful works.  So I thought I should crowdsource my cites for this. Since my goal is to cite to sources that graduate students and other non-legal historians can start with in an effort to bring legal history into their work, can you recommend helpful works?  Here's the paragraph:
Battles over the Treaty of Versailles and the National Security Act of 1947 do more than showcase the way American political leaders fought over the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Statutes and treaties become the legal architecture of statebuilding. The National Security Act did more than ratify a vision of American national security.  It restructured the military and created new departments.  The resulting Department of Defense has grown to a sprawling bureaucracy with over 3.2 million employees, and drawing approximately 19% of the federal budget, though this number does not include veterans benefits. Although the statute itself, and subsequent amendments, create the basic organization of federal bureaucratic power, it also lays the basis for new forms of lawmaking. Much of the law of U.S. foreign relations since 1947 is administrative law generated by federal rulemaking. Because of this, the legal history of American foreign relations is not limited to treaties, statutes and court rulings. Administrative law is foreign relations law. Diving into this regulatory history would illuminate the legal side of the bureaucratic history of foreign relations.
Please post your ideas in the comments or email me. My readers will thank you!

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