His call for the conference gained 10,000 adherents including Victor Hugo, John Stuart Mill, Elisée Reclus, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Louis Blanc and Mikhail Bakunin.
Karl Marx was dismissive and urged the newly formed International Workingmen's Association to have no official involvement.
He set up the Acollas Law School primarily for foreign students wishing to attend the University of Paris.
Acollas took a critical view of Rousseau's theory of rights, arguing that his ideas on individual autonomy would lead to a dictatorship of the majority.
Acollas is mentioned in Nakae's book A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government 1887, where a character called "Shinshikun" (Highbrow) remarks: