USEFULNESS OF FOREIGN LAW COLLECTION

The emphasis we place on foreign law is that somewhere in the Government there ought to be an outstanding law library on foreign law. No other agency of the Government has one or even pretends to have. No agency of Government can afford to hire an expert for each foreign country. The law library of Congress pools these foreign law experts for all library purposes as well as research and reference purposes to serve the entire Government, and that includes Congress, the State Department, the Defense Department, the Department of Justice, and so on down the list.

And I want to emphasize further-this is an important point-the Legislative Reference Service is not staffed to give service in foreign law. All the service on foreign law given to the Congress and the departments and others comes from the law library. Neither the Legislative Reference Service nor any Government agencies can afford to employ experts in each foreign law jurisdiction. There should be one place in the Government where the foreign law experts are pooled. That place is the Law Library of Congress, which is the one and only place where the foreign lawbooks exist. Foreign law collections of the law library number about 400,000 books.

Mr. NORRELL. Will you yield?

Mr. HORAN. Yes.

Mr. NORRELL. If a man had a lawsuit in France, let us say, he would have to get a lawyer in France to try that case.

Mr. KEITT. That is true, but that is not to say there are not many inquiries about foreign law. The best way to understand how foreign law is used in the United States is to examine the inquiries which are received in the law library for the Congress and for the Government. That is the test. We are prepared to meet that test.

Mr. NORRELL. I think the real test is to get a good lawyer in the country where the lawsuit is brought.

Mr. KEITT. Sir, will you look at the list of requests from Members of Congress and look at the list of requests from all Government departments and tell us whether we are wasting our time in meeting those requests. I can get you 100 Congressmen who will either write a letter or come in here and tell you of the valuable service which has been rendered to them either in legislation or in serving their constituency. I can get you man after man in the high echelons of the Government agencies to say that the foreign lawbooks and the foreign law experts of the Library have been of valuable aid to them in conducting the operations of the Government, to say nothing of the international organizations and the general public who call on us for services constantly and extensively. I can do no more than cite the examples. Do not take my word for it. Take the examples I am ready to present for your inspection.

Mr. HORAN. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, would it be helpful to place in the record some of the questions that have come to the European Law Division from Members of Congress?

Mr. HORAN. I think that would be useful.

(The information follows:)

SELECT LIST OF INQUIRIES-EUROPEAN LAW DIVISION

I. COMMITTEES OF THE CONGRESS

1. Wiretapping as evidence in courts in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland; 55 pages, 1958.

2. Security measures with regard to atomic energy in 10 countries; 180 pages, December 1957.

3. Privileged communications of members of the press under Italian, German, and French Law; 11 pages, February 1959.

4. Influx of capital into Switzerland from undisclosed sources; 7 pages, March 1959.

5. Regulation of small craft under martime law in France and the Netherlands; 15 pages, 1956.

6. Double jeopardy under Italian, German, and French Law; 13 pages, October 1957.

7. Income-tax rates in the countries of the Middle East; 12 pages.

8. Jurisdiction over airspace: United Kingdom, France, the U.S.S.R., the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, Japan, Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the Philippines, Bulgaria, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Italy, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iran, Egypt, Albania, Afghanistan, Sweden, Iceland, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Liberia, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Australia, Canada, Burma, Ceylon, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Union of South Africa; 108 pages, October 1958. 9. Patent legislation in various countries.

10. Patents and atomic research in Belgium, Italy, the Soviet Union and Sweden; 84 pages, October 1958.

11. The Russian administration of Alaska (81st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 152) ; 99 pages.

12. Passport regulations in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, and Yugoslavia; 24 pages, July 1958.

II. INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

1. Conscription laws in 36 countries of the world.

2. Legislation concerning the employment of foreigners (covering the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy).

3. Enforcement of foreign judgments in Germany.

4. Criminal law and procedure in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Turkey.

5. German law on birth records.

6. The German pension insurance system with particular reference to the methods of financing.

7. Methods of financing social security for old-age and invalidity in France. 8. Adoption in Germany involving parties of different nationality.

9. Statement regarding the transfer of an inheritance from Czechoslovakia to a foreign country.

10. Recent Egyptian measures affecting non-Egyptian subjects and property. 11. Taxation of residents of Norway on property and income in the U.S.A. 12. Social security laws and system in Sweden.

13. Provisions of the Greek civil code on domestic relations.

14. Regulation of small craft under the maritime laws of France.

15. Regulation of marketing channels in Germany.

16. Inheritance rights of Americans in Hungary and Poland.

17. Theft under the Italian Criminal Code of 1889.

18. Administration of justice in Yugoslavia.

19. Criminal penalties in the NATO countries.

III. INQUIRIES FROM GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Department of State

1. Legislation on the protection of the State in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Greece.

2. German military code.

3. Indemnity of tortfeasors in Bulgaria.

4. Responsibility of joint tortfeasors in France.

Supreme Court

1. Survey of the reform of Soviet criminal law of December 25, 1958 and translation of the pertinent laws and introductory addresses.

2. The German military criminal code of March 30, 1957.

3. Rights of the accused under Swedish law.

4. Suits against foreign governments and counter claims under the Soviet law. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

1. Some aspects of German divorce law and of Austrian law of marriage and adoption.

2. Marriage between first cousins in Denmark.

3. Administration of estates by heirs in Denmark.

4. Divorces of Russian refugees residing in Yugoslavia.

5. Yugoslav law on adoption of April 1, 1957.

6. Partition of matrimonial property and divorce in Finland.

7. Separation under the Italian code of 1865.

8. Invalidity of marriage in Yugoslavia.

Department of Justice (Immigation and Naturalization Service) 1. Moral turpitude in Czechoslovakia.

2. Nationality law of Iran.

3. Greek constitutional guarantees of elementary justice.

4. Elementary rights and due process of law in courts of Iran.

5. Validity of a religious marriage in Latvia.

6. Conviction for larceny by military court in Finland. Department of Justice (Admiralty and Shipping Section) 1. Compusory pilotage under Swedish law.

Department of Justice (Board of Immigration Appeals) 1. Validity of a Catholic marriage celebrated in Italy. 2. Rehabilitation and its effects under Belgian law. Department of Justice (Trial Section)

1. Status of certain Czech property during the Nazi occupation and after the liberation.

Department of Justice (Office of Alien Property)

1. Danish law and "trusts."

Internal Revenue Department

1. Fraud in the Haitian and French Penal Codes. 2. Legislation on confiscation of land in Poland. Department of Labor

1. Leaving employment under Soviet law.

Treasury Department

1. Holographic wills under German law.

2. Inheritance rights of the spouse and descendants in Poland.

Foreign Claims Settlement Commission

1. Postwar legislation on Jewish property in Bulgaria.

2. Law of intestacy in Romania.

MID-EUROPEAN LAW PROJECT

Mr. KEITT. I would like to enter into the record this document showing in part what the European Law Division has been doing for 10 years. Now we can do no more than to present these examples and to prove to you by statistics and facts that our service is used, that it has been used constantly, and that the use within the last few years has been growing.

(The material referred to follows:)

MID-EUROPEAN LAW PROJECT

The mid-European law project originated in September 1949 as a digest of east European law with the financial suport of its present sponsor, the Free Europe Committee. The purpose of the project was to present authentic source material in English, revealing the political, social, and economic changes which have taken place in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia since the cessation of hostilities of World War II. The geographic scope of the project was extended in 1952 to cover the Baltic States-Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia-and in 1954 to cover Albania.

It was realized that a many-sided study of the laws and decrees of these countries was imperative from many points of view. The totalitarian regimes prevailing in these countries employ laws and decrees as instruments for the regulation of all fields of public and, to a great extent, private life. Thus, laws can and should be used as sources of information in other fields of research in addition to the strictly legal. Soviet and satellite legislations are a source of information on economic and political conditions, changing trends in Communist policies, labor conditions, marketing of commodities, and standards of living. Moreover laws and decrees create avenues of power, and are instruments of social control and political rule.

In all these fields a political or economic analyst, even if he knows the language of the country, needs the assistance of a lawyer trained in the law of the country he is studying. It was felt that the competent study of laws and decrees by lawyers of the various satellite countries would afford a solid foundation for important regional studies conducted by Government agencies and special projects, in order to reveal the economic, social, and political conditions of these countries.

Hence originated the second reason for the establishment of the project, which was to maintain in the Law Library, Library of Congress, as the greatest repository of legal material, a body of experts on satellite countries who would prepare specialists' reports on such questions as might arise from the requests of Members of Congress, Federal officers, and agencies and special projects. For this task persons were selected who had a native faculty in the language and knowledge of the customs of the countries concerned and were trained in their legal methods. The idea was to give the law in its actual operation and not only as it appeared on the statute books, and to read the real truth between the lines of the statutes. The publication of the reports and sudies appeared as the final goal.

No sooner was the project established than inquiries began to pour in from all quarters-from the sponsor of the project, the Free Europe Committee, Senators and Congressmen, the State Department and other Government agencies, learned institutions and special projects. The project was expanded, the major countries being represented by three, and for a time, four specialists instead of one, with adequate clerical assistance.

The Law Library was the natural place within the Library of Congress for the project because for years it has rendered services in foreign law. Its personnel had experience in handling questions of foreign law, and the law of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in particular, in a manner understandable to the American reader. There are also concentrated collections of publications in the Law Library which provide the only comprehensive collection of foreign law in the Government and the best collection of foreign law in the world. Time proved the soundness of the decision regarding the project's location. Research and reporting by the members of the project were blended with the efforts of the Chief of the European Law Division and his assistants into effective teamwork.

Even an agency as intimately concerned with foreign affairs as the Department of State invariably relies on the Law Library's collections and its specialists' staff for assistance in foreign law problems arising within the Department or referred to it from the outside. For instance, on February 9, 1960, the Department of State advised a U.S. Senator seeking information on foreign law that it "does not maintain complete files of the laws in foreign countries" and suggested that "the information may be obtained" from the Law Library of Congress. In another case within the last year, the Department of State advised the Law Library that—

"[your] material is desired for the use of the Department of State in its negotiations with the Polish Government for the settlement of claims in the total amount of many millions of dollars. *** The material will be of great value to the Department and may enable it to obtain a more favorable settlement than would be possible without it."

The variety of qualifications of the members of the project made them highly qualified for the work outside of the geographic limits of their native countries. They contributed in every phase of librarianship responsibilities in the European Law Division, in acquisitions, processing, and reference work connected with European law.

By 1951, the members of the Free Europe Committee concerned with the work of the project arrived at the conclusion, on the basis of the reports and studies prepared by the project and of the uses made of them by various agencies, that outright analyses and not mere digests of laws should be spelled out as the target of the project. Hence its present name. Since 1955, in addition to the regular work, a special assignment was given to the project, the preparation of studies for the International Commission of Jurists. Several important and lengthy studies were prepared on political crimes and the rule of law in answer to questionnaires from the Commission and others. The studies culminated in the preparation of a 2-volume comprehensive study of 2,000 pages on "Government, Law and Courts in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe." (See infra.)

It may be stated that during its nearly 10 years of existence the project has lived up to expectations, successfully fulfilling all the assignments given it, and has proved that its services are needed by all branches of the Government in their current business.

Not only did the research activities materialize in a series of important individual studies, praised by their users, but even the remote goal, the publication of the results of the research done by the project, developed on a large scale. The project's monthly "Highlights of Mid-European Law and Activities" is in its 7th year of publication. It began with 200 copies and upon popular demand increased to 1,500, and the demand is still increasing.

Five commercially printed books have been produced, consisting of from 160 to 375 pages each. "Church and State Behind the Iron Curtain, 1955," which also appeared in an Italian edition, is out of print.

The sixth major book, "Government Law and Courts in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe," 2 volumes, 2,000 pages, is announced to be off the press in August 1959. (For details see appendix A-I.)

Numerous minor reports have been made in multilithed or dittoed form, and most of them are out of print. Finally, individual members of the project have contributed articles to periodicals elucidating a variety of problems. The publications are surveyed in greater detail in appendix A, I and II.

Five more books are in the process of being completed. All arrangements for their publication have been made with Praeger, N.Y., who has announced them in his catalog.

Many other activities of immediate use for a variety of Government agencies are also strongly in evidence. Some of them have contributed materially to the carrying out of our foreign policy, e.g., the presentation of the U.S. case in the International Court involving peace treaty violations by Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria; the hearing on forced labor by an ad hoc committee of the United Nations; the presentation of the case involving the shooting down of an Israeli airplane over Bulgaria in 1955 to the International Court of Justice; and participation in the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe on the preparation of material for scripts. Other activities contributed to the solution of problems in the current business of Federal agencies, e.g., members of the project appeared as expert witnesses on behalf of the Federal and local government and in private litigations, in line with the Federal Government policies.

The project contributed to the development of the Library collections, augmenting the material needed for research in the countries covered by it. A large number of translations, from and into 14 languages, was made for Senators and Congressmen and their committees. All these activities are surveyed in detail in appendix B.

Unfortunately, the Free Europe Committee has advised the Librarian of Congress that the appropriation for the project for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1960, has been reduced by more than one-half (from $216,000 to $100,000), and that its financial support of the project will be discontinued on June 30, 1960.