Hardy Cross Dillard (23 October 1902 – 12 May 1982) was an American jurist who served as a judge on the International Court of Justice from 1970 to 1979,[1] as a judge appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to a court of arbitration concerning the Beagle Channel islands dispute,[2] Dean of the University of Virginia School of Law (1963–1968),[3] legal adviser to the High Commissioner for Germany (1950),[4] first director of the National War College (1946),[5] and as a colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II (1941–1946).

The institute brought prominent speakers to the university from government, business and academia to discuss topics of national and international interest.

As the director, Dillard became acquainted with some of the leading figures of the day such as Senator Robert A. Taft, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, Ambassador Paul V McNutt, Owen Lattimore, Thurman Arnold, Max Lerner, David Sarnoff, Rexford Guy Tugwell, Major George Fielding Eliot, Max Eastman, Quincy Howe, and William L. Shirer.

According to his peers, Judge Dillard's ICJ decision's were resolute and consistent with jurisprudence depicted in writings during his years as a legal scholar.

[18] Judge Dillard's multi method jurisprudence is reflected in an adage he often used and first noticed on a sign outside of a Unitarian Church in London during the Second World War – between dogmatism on one hand and skepticism on the other, there is a middle way, which is our way - open minded certainty.

In order to encourage states to look more often to the ICJ for the resolution of disputes, the court appointed a committee of its judges to simplify its rules of procedure.

The committee's major innovation was to give parties an option to submit a case to a "chamber" of five judges instead of to the full court of fifteen, thereby making possible a more expeditious procedure.

[23] In April 1950 Dillard, under the auspices of the state department, was placed on active duty in the international section of the Pentagon as Legal Adviser to the High Commissioner for Occupied Germany.