Archives of the International Law Association

Dr Ruth Frendo, Archivist and Records Manager at the Institute of Advanced legal Studies (IALS), explores and explains the recently-catalogued treasure trove of archives and records from the International Law Association (ILA) which are held in the Archives at IALS

Ogólnopolska konferencja naukowa „Rola dyplomacji i prawa dyplomatycznego w stosunkach międzynarodowych”, Warszawa, 23–24 marca 2023 roku

W dniach 23–24 marca 2023 r. w Warszawie odbyła się ogólnopolska konferencja naukowa zatytułowana „Rola dyplomacji i prawa dyplomatycznego w stosunkach międzynarodowych”, zorganizowana przez Grupę Polską Stowarzyszenia Prawa Międzynarodowego (International Law Association – ILA) oraz Wydział Prawa i Administracji Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego

International Law Association, Committee on Cultural Heritage Law (London, England, May 17-18, 2007)

The Committee on Cultural Heritage Law of the International Law Association (ILA) held an interim meeting in London on May 17-18, 2007. After completing the work on the Principles for Cooperation in the Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural Material on the occasion of the Seventy-Second Conference in Toronto 2006, the committee has now two projects on its agenda. The first one is concerned with a study of the concept of safe havens for temporary deposit of cultural material rescued from circumstances of armed conflict and other serious threats; the second study deals with the relationship between international trade law and cultural heritage la

The Impacts of Sea Level Rise and the Law of the Sea Convention: Facilitating Legal Certainty and Stability of Maritime Zones and Boundaries

It seems clear that the impacts of sea level rise were not contemplated by the drafters of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention during UNCLOS III. Legal scholars began to identify these issues in the early 1990s but the establishment and work of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on International Law and Sea Level Rise has drawn increased attention to the importance of this issue that is now being considered by a Study Group of the International Law Commission. This article traces the remarkable and swift evolution over the last decade of State practice on the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Convention in relation to the impacts of sea level rise on baselines and limits of maritime zones. This rapid evolution in State practice provides an interesting case study of the ability of the Convention, now at forty, to adapt to new situations and challenges

Legal Knowledge as Social and Political Capital

The 150th anniversary of the Institut de Droit International (IDI) and the International Law Association (ILA) provides an opportunity to assess the role of legal scholarship in the codification and institutionalization of international law. This essay argues that academic expertise is a form of social and political capital that is at once individual, institutional, and structural. Empirically focused on international dispute settlement mechanisms (interstate adjudication and arbitration), this essay underscores that academic expertise shapes the professional status of international lawyers, and influences the clout of international institutions as codifiers of international law

‘From Seoul with love': the continuing relevance of the 1986 Seoul ILA declaration on progressive development of public international law relating to a new international economic order

The purpose of this article is to reconsider, in the light of global developments and other challenges, attempts over the past four decades to agree principles and rules of international law relating to the establishment and operation of a New International Economic Order (NIEO). For its critics, the NIEO was a one-sided attempt, based on unsound legal and economic principles, to undermine the integrity of the global economic system, a system that had played a vital role in permitting the world to recover following the tragedy of the Second World War. For its proponents, it was, on the other hand, a life-and-death attempt to reorder a system that was perpetually and unfairly biased against the poor majority; ‘life-and-death’ because the poverty that results from lack of development was not (nor continues to be) an abstract issue. In particular, in seeking to narrow the fi eld of enquiry, this article will review the attempt by the non-governmental International Law Association (ILA)– acting through its international committee on the topic – to forge a clearer North-South consensus on this matter through the adoption of its 1986 Seoul Declaration on Progressive Development of Principles of Public International Law relating to a New International Economic Order. In consciously trying to overcome some of the more overt political divisions within the UN General Assembly, the ILA sought to find carefully crafted compromises on such topics as permanent sovereignty over natural resources, specifi cally expropriation, the right to development, common heritage of mankind, as well as on broader issues of equality, equity and economic solidarity. Now, over twenty years after Seoul, it is fitting to consider whether the 1986 Declaration, in trying to move the debate forward, ultimately proved little more than a symbolic, but largely futile, gesture. Was this legal desiratum just too idealistic and utopian, particularly in the light of changing global circumstances and political realities

International Actors and the Formation of Laws

This open access book addresses the discourse that creates, modifies, and reshapes the law, as well as discourse participants. The book focuses on the actors operating in legal regimes and their subtly, bluntly, or even outright aggressive impact on the formation of laws. As the book examines the intersection of domestic, European, international, and even transnational, legal regimes where new law emerges as a product of this discourse, it contributes to the understanding of the mobility of law and contemporary law’s interactive nature. This book provides enlightening examples of diverse legal fields influenced by international, non-domestic actors. It covers a wide range of relevant topics, from financial sanctions to the rights of indigenous peoples, and addresses actors ranging from the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights to disability organizations. By exploring actors, the book stresses their objectives and driving forces behind their efforts to influence law. The book reveals an array of diverging methods used by international actors to influence law. Additionally, the book resonates with Nordic legal tradition and highlights Nordic commitment to rule of law and equality. The authors are members of the Finnish branch of the International Law Association (ILA) and recognized experts in their particular fields and have been afforded freedom to adopt the approach they perceive as best suited to their topic. The book is aimed at a broad range of readers involved in academic research and study; lawyers working in government departments, international organizations, or private practice with an international focus; as well as policy makers and influencers in international organizations, government bodies, and non-governmental organizations

The IDI, The ILA, and their Impact on the Institutionalization of International Law in the Americas: Resonances and Dissonances

The Institut de Droit International (IDI) and the International Law Association (ILA) have bequeathed complex and contradictory legacies to the Americas. This essay explores both the resonances and the dissonances that the formation of the IDI, and to a lesser extent, the ILA, had in the institutionalization of the modern discipline of international law in the Americas. On the one hand, the IDI's establishment as an elite Eurocentric organization with a missionary imperial approach to the promotion and reform of international law, generated resonances across the Americas, inspiring the creation of the American Institute of International Law (AIIL). On the other hand, the AIIL emerged as a reaction to the IDI, insofar as the former promoted juridical values based on the idea of American international law and a distinctive sense of U.S. and continental legal exceptionalism. The essay argues that the institutionalization of international law in the Americas was both inspired by the Eurocentric imperial and elitist legal approach promoted by the IDI, and the desire to forge a distinctive Western Hemispheric counterpart: a continental American international law