This idea was instituted during the 5th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, under the protection of Swedish Prince Bertil, Duke of Halland (with State Herald of Sweden Gunnar Scheffer as General Secretary), by decision of the Commission for State Heraldry chaired by Alessandro Monti della Corte with the purpose of creating a provisional list of orders whose approval had to be submitted to the next Congress.

The root of some of these controversies stems from the unavoidable bias inherent in the ICOC's governing structure as a private, non-governmental organization.

The reason for its foundation is explained in a report of the "Commission for State Heraldry" – composed of: Baron Alessandro Monti della Corte, President, who was also the Chancellor of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus; Hungarian author Noble professor Gèza Grosschmid Zsögöd de Visegrad, Vice President; Roger Harmignies, Rapporteur; and by its Members: Portcullis Pursuivant John Brooke-Little; Lt. Col. Robert Gayre, a Scottish anthropologist and author who had an interest in heraldry; Robert Matagne; genealogist and officer of arms Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Bt., Baron of Easter Moncreiffe; Elisabeth Prins; Officer of Arms Conrad Swan and Paul Warming – concerning point 4, "the decisions of the III Congress at Madrid (1955)[3] were recalled relative to the juridical and historical conditions which had to apply to independent, both Dynastic and Family, Orders of Chivalry and it was recommended to prepare a list, albeit provisional, of the said Orders so that they might be studied and then approved at the following congress.".

[12] Since the Niadh Nask was heretofore unknown within the world of chivalric orders, Robert Gayre and the ICOC expanded the original focus of the group to include a new category, called "Dynastic Nobiliary Fraternities".

Among those convinced by the hoax were former Irish prime ministers Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds, and herald John Brooke-Little.

After Gayre's death in 1996, Terence Francis MacCarthy assumed the position of President and continued using the ICOC as a vehicle to advance his fraudulent nobiliary claims.

The previous board membership was replaced largely by individuals of greater credibility in the heraldry and chivalric orders community, such as author and nobiliary expert Guy Stair Sainty, genealogical and heraldic expert as Roger Harmignies, Cecil Humphery-Smith, Michel Popoff, Henrik Klackenberg, Elizabeth Roads, President of International Academy of Heraldry – AIH, Hervé Pinoteau, Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Robert Watt, Past President of International Academy of Heraldry – AIH, Maria Loredana Pinotti, President of International Academy of Genealogy – AIG, Michel Teillard d'Eyry, Past President of International Academy of Genealogy – AIG as well as historian of the crusades Jonathan Riley-Smith.

As suggested by the Executive Committee, the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry Prize was founded within the Prizes and Awards Commission of the Confédération Internationale de Généalogie et d’Héraldique, to be conferred on a publication about chivalry and awards, starting from the XXVIII International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences of Quebec City (2008).

In addition all the new creations, currently being made by heads of once ruling houses, should be simply considered as awarding systems without chivalric content.