US Code Appendices in the United States
According to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, an appendix in the United States Code “is the material that follows titles 5, 11, 18, 28, and 50 of the Code. The appendices contain Federal court rules and certain acts that relate to the subject matter of the title to which they are attached.”
Appendices and Positive Law
See more about Positive Law Codification here.
Some positive law titles of the U.S. Code have appendices. The compilers of the Code may add an appendix to a positive law title of the United States Code because a particular new act may be closely related to the subject matter of the title, but Congress never amended the title to incorporate these new piece of legislation. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978, for example, is in an appendix to Title 5 (Government Organization And Employees), besides other appendices like the Inspector General Act of 1978.
Sometimes the appendices are related to the Title. For instance, in the Copyright Law of the U.S.contained in Title 17 of the U.S. Code, the Appendix K is the The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 19881.
Types of US Code Appendices
According to the Office of Revision Counsel, there are, in the U.S. Code, five appendices. “The appendices to titles 11, 18, and 28 mostly contain Federal court rules. The appendix to title 5 contains freestanding laws that relate to the subject matter of title 5 but were not incorporated into that title by Congress. The appendix to title 50 contains freestanding laws that relate to the subject matter of title 50 but were probably thought to be inappropriate to that title because of their specificity or duration. Sections in the appendices to titles 5 and 18 retain their act section numbers while those in the appendix to title 50 have been assigned different Code section numbers. Translations are not made in the appendices. The fact that an act is included in an appendix does not affect its meaning or validity.”
Are appendices positive law?
The statute, in the case of titles that have been enacted as positive law, but any Appendix to these title have not been enacted as part of the title, and therefore the appendices are not positive law.
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