This volume contains the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications (RTA 2002),which was held July 22- 24,2002 in Copenhagen as part of the 3rd Federated Logic Conference (FLoC 2002). RTA is the ma jor international forum for the presentation of research on all aspects of rewriting. Previous RTA conferences took place in Dijon (1985), Bordeaux (1987),Chapel Hill (1989),Como (1991),Montreal (1993),Kaise- lautern (1995),Rutgers (1996),Sitges (1997),Tsukuba (1998),Trento (1999), Norwich (2000),and Utrecht (2001). A total of 20 regular papers,2 application papers and 4 system descriptions were selected for presentation from 49 submissions from Argentina (1),Brazil 2 1 5 ( ),Czech Republic (1),France (13),Germany (8),Israel ( ),Italy (1 ),Japan 3 3 6 1 (6),The Netherlands (2),Poland (1),Portugal (1 ),Rumania (1),Spain (4),UK 3 5 1 1 ( ),Uruguay ( ),USA (5 ),Venezuela (1). The program committee awarded 6 2 2 the best paper prize to Paul-Andr' e Melli' es for his paper Residual Theory Re- sited. This paper presents an elegant and subtle generalization of Jean-Jacques L' evy's residual theory.
I am especially grateful to the invited speakers Franz Baader,John Mitchell, and Natara jan Shankar for accepting our invitation to present us their insights into their research areas.