The International Law Association was founded in Brussels
in 1873 and is considered the preeminent private international
organization devoted to the development of international law.
As a non-governmental association with consultative status
in the United Nations, its debates at its biennial conferences
have in many cases influenced subsequent sessions of the United
Nations General Assembly. Academic scholars, practitioners,
and government lawyers travel from afar to press adoption
of resolutions that have often influenced the development
of international law. No major school of international law
is now unrepresented at the conferences. Records of the debates
and of the resolutions adopted are published by the Association
and circulated widely throughout the world.
Members of the Association are grouped into over forty "national"
branches. Individuals from countries in which numbers of international
lawyers are still too few to form a branch are listed as members
of "Headquarters" in London, where the Secretary
General of the Association maintains his office. The study
of international law is conducted in various committees composed
of specialists chosen from the membership to represent widely
different approaches. These committees function under a Director
of Studies so as to prepare reports that may be presented
and debated at the biennial conferences. Resolutions often
flow from these debates.
Members of the branches are automatically members of the
Association. They appear at conferences as individuals rather
than as "national" delegations. There is no voting
by branches.
Customarily one branch after another invites the Association
to hold its biennial conference within its country. The chairman
of the host branch is elected President of the Association
to serve until the next conference. Five members of the American
Branch have been Association Presidents.
Members of the Association from the United States of America
enter the Association by joining the American Branch. Its
history is illustrious, and, indeed, the role of Americans
has been notable since the very founding of the Association
itself. The history of these events is set forth in the essay
prepared by Dr. Kurt H. Nadelmann, which is printed at pp.
2-15 of the 1977-1978 American Branch Proceedings and Committee
Reports and is found also in 70 American Journal of International
Law 519 (1976).
Committees of the American Branch, usually paralleling the
committees of the Association, study problems in international
law. Customarily these committees prepare reports that are
published for each world conference in these Proceedings of
the American Branch. These reports represent no official United
States view, nor even the view of the Branch itself, but rather
the divergent views of committee members. In light of this
divergence, reports often contain minority positions opposed
to the majority. Since members attend the world conference
as individuals, minority members of committees may speak as
freely on the floor of the conference as the spokesperson
for the committee majority.
The American Branch is autonomous: it holds its own annual
meeting, elects its own officers, collects its own dues, and
appropriates its funds as it wishes, except for that portion
of the dues payable to Association headquarters.
From 1873-1882 the Branch existed under the name of "The
International Code Committee of the United States." The
present American Branch was formally established on January
27, 1922, in New York City as a result of an initiative taken
by the American members of the International Law Association
who attended the Association's 30th Conference held in 1921
at The Hague: Hollis R. Bailey of Boston, Oliver H. Dean of
Kansas City, Charles B. Elliott of Minneapolis, Edwin R. Keedy
of Philadelphia, and Arthur K. Kuhn of New York. Hollis R.
Bailey became the first President; Arthur K. Kuhn the first
Secretary. Chief Justice William Howard Taft was the first
Honorary President.
Of the annual or biennial Conferences of the International
Law Association, five have been held in the United States.
At the invitation of the American Bar Association, in 1899,
the 18th Conference was held in Buffalo, New York, and, in
1907, the 24th in Portland, Maine. The American Branch was
host to the 36th, 48th, and 55th Conferences held in New York
City in 1930, 1958, and 1972, respectively.
Among the Presidents of the Association were a number of
Americans. David Dudley Field, who had been elected Honorary
President at the founding conference in Brussels in 1873,
served as President in 1874, 1875, and 1878. Simeon E. Baldwin
was President in 1900, and John W. Davis in 1930; Oscar R.
Houston served from 1958 to 1960, and Cecil J. Olmstead from
1972 to 1974. Cecil J. Olmstead was Chairman of the Association
from 1986 to 1988 and is now a Patron of the Association.
Mr. Olmstead is currently one of two Patrons of the Association
(the other being Lord Wilberforce). Robert B. von Mehren is
one of its three Vice-Chairmen.
The list of the past American Branch Presidents reads: Hollis
R. Bailey (1922); Charles B. Elliott (1923); Harrington Putnam
(1924); Robert E.L. Saner (1925); Arthur K. Kuhn (1926); Edwin
R. Keedy (1927); Amos J. Peaslee (1928); Edmund A. Whitman
(1929); John W. Davis (1930); Oscar R. Houston (1931); Howard
Thayer Kingsbury (1932); Paul H. Lacques (1933); Fred H. Aldrich
(1934); Joseph P. Chamberlain (1935); William J. Conlen (1936);
Lewis M. Isaacs (1940-1943); William S. Culbertson (1944-1948);
J.W. Ryan (1948-1951); Clyde Eagleton (1951-1958); Oscar R.
Houston (1958-1959); Pieter J. Kooiman (1959-1963); Cecil
J. Olmstead (1963-1972); John N. Hazard (1972-1979); Robert
B. von Mehren (1979-1986); Cynthia C. Lichtenstein (1986-1992);
Edward Gordon (1992-1994); Alfred P. Rubin (1994-2000); James A.R. Nafziger (2000-2004). The
present President is Charles D. Siegal, elected in 2004.
