"This select catalog lists National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publications of records that relate to the history of U.S. diplomatic relations."--Introduction.

This book presents essays on recently concluded diplomatic negotiations both by practitioners involved in the action and by scholars who have combined research with detailed discussions with the participants, providing a review of developments in the governance of diplomacy.

Diplomatics was originally developed in France during the seventeenth century in attempts to prove the authenticity of archival documents. It was later refined in European universities as a legal, historical, and philological discipline, and in the twentieth century it has primarily been applied to medieval and early modern documents in order to evaluate their authority as sources of research. Diplomatics embraces the perspective of the modern archivist, and investigates the origin, development, and application of diplomatic concepts. It examines the organizational and evaluative effectiveness of diplomatic concepts in the context of modern records and archival systems, and looks at the relationship between originality and authenticity in records. The physical and intellectual form of records is examined, and the traditional methodology of diplomatic criticism is clearly explained and augmented by tips concerning its archival use. Diplomatics was originally a series of six articles that appeared in Archivaria, the journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists. In addition to those six articles, this volume contains an introduction that provides a broad synopsis of diplomatics, including its unused potential to help rethink record organization and use in a multimedia age fraught with increasingly complex informational problems.

Toward "Thorough, Accurate, and Reliable" explores the evolution of the Foreign Relations of the United States documentary history series from its antecedents in the early republic through the early 21st century implementation of its current mandate, the 1991 Foreign Relations statute. This book traces how policymakers and an expanding array of stakeholders translated values like "security," "legitimacy," and "transparency" into practice as they debated how to balance the government's obligation to protect sensitive information with its commitment to openness. Determining the "people's right to know" has fueled lively discussion for over two centuries, and this work provides important, historically informed perspectives valuable to policymakers and engaged citizens as that conversation continues. Policymakers, citizens, especially political science researchers, political scientists, academic, high school, public librarians and students performing research for foreign policy issues will be most interested in this volume. Other related products: Available print volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/international-foreign-affairs/foreign-relations-united-states-series-frus

The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has for over 50 years been central to diplomacy and applied to all forms of relations among sovereign States. Participation is almost universal. The rules giving special protection to ambassadors are the oldest established in international law and the Convention is respected almost everywhere. But understanding it as a living instrument requires knowledge of its background in customary international law, of the negotiating history which clarifies many of its terms and the subsequent practice of states and decisions of national courts which have resolved other ambiguities. Diplomatic Law provides this in-depth Commentary. The book is an essential guide to changing methods of modern diplomacy and shows how challenges to its regime of special protection for embassies and diplomats have been met and resolved. It is used by ministries of foreign affairs and cited by domestic courts world-wide. The book analyzes the reasons for the widespread observance of the Convention rules and why in the special case of communications - where there is flagrant violation of their special status - these reasons do not apply. It describes how abuse has been controlled and how the immunities in the Convention have survived onslaught by those claiming that they should give way to conflicting entitlements to access to justice and the desire to punish violators of human rights. It describes how the duty of diplomats not to interfere in the internal affairs of the host State is being narrowed in the face of the communal international responsibility to monitor and uphold human rights.