Women’s job on ‘Digest of International Law’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32874, 24 March 1972, Page 5

Women’s job on ‘Digest of International Law’

(By LUCIA JOHNSON LEITH in the "Christian Science Monitor")

WASHINGTON, i “The Digest will advance 1 world order and society. I’m j confident of that.” Julia ' Willis, diminutive United 1 States State Department 1 attorney, speaks with enor- 1 tnous enthusiasm for her sub- , iect: the new United States J Government 15-volume 1 “Digest of International ' Law,” covering World War II | to the present. “The ideal purpose of the ‘Digest’ is to promote not i only the recognition and i understanding of international law, but an actual adherence to it,” Miss Willis said. “It > was this purpose that always kept me going forward on the project.” The “Digest’s” chief author, Miss Marjorie Whiteman, a brilliant legal adviser in the State Department, retired almost two years ago. Miss Willis, now advanced to a

new job—deputy assistant legal adviser for United Nations affairs—was Miss Whiteman’s right hand through the long and sometimes arduous years of its preparation. When the last volume, the index, appears—hopefully in late spring—Miss Willis will have devoted 14 years to the project. She spoke of the immense undertaking: “The pragmatic purpose of the ‘Digest’ is to record what the practice of international law is and thus elucidate what the actual development of international law is at this stage.” she explained. The Whiteman “Digest” covers topics such as: treaties; the United Nations; . acquisition and loss of territory, including outer space; post-World War II settlement :of territories; shipping (ini eluding nuclear shipping);

communications (including space); the laws of war; neutrality; the use of force. “What this ‘Digest’ does really,” Miss Willis explained, “is to mould out of the raw material of a quarter of a century of diplomatic correspondence and practice of international law, a synthesis of the principles of law as they have been evoked or practised or applied by the nations of the world. “Thus,” she continues, “the ‘Digest’ becomes a common tool for every Foreign Office in the world, which enables a country to adhere to or grasp the principles of law on which their relations' with other nations are founded.

“A country can still violate international law. But it will have to square its actions with what’s in the ‘Digest,’ because everyone knows what’s in it,” she said. The “Digest” is distributed to all foreign offices round the world, to all United States embassies, and to all United Nations delegations. University libraries, scholars, law firms, and diplomats buy the volumes from the United States Government. Miss Willis recalled meeting two young African attorneys who were taking certain volumes of the “Digest" back to their universities so that they could organise their international law courses round than. For almost 14 years, Miss Whiteman and Miss Willis worked seven days a week on it. “We used to share sandwiches in the office on Christmas Day,” Miss Willis recalls. “A book has a way of living with you whether you want it to or not. But our enthusiasm never flagged. The work was never boring.” A graduate of William and Mary’s Marshall-Wythe Law School, Miss Willis came to the “Digest” after three years of graduate work at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. In her new position as deputy assistant legal adviser for United Nations affairs, Miss Willis will advise diplomats in the United Nations section of the State Department.