International Law Commission

[1][2][3][4] It is composed of 34 individuals recognized for their expertise and qualifications in international law, who are elected by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) every five years.

The ideological roots of the ILC originated as early as the 19th century when the Congress of Vienna in Europe developed several international rules and principles to regulate conduct among its members.

The Commission held its first session in 1949, with its initial work influenced by the Second World War and subsequent concerns about international crimes such as genocide and acts of aggression.

It is responsible for several foundational developments in international law, including the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which establishes a framework for forming and interpreting treaties, and the International Criminal Court, the first permanent tribunal tasked with adjudicating offenses such as genocide and crimes against humanity.

Many concepts of the 1930 conference were adopted in the Charter of the United Nations, which established the successor organization to the League.

Pursuant to this provision, on December 11, 1946, the General Assembly passed Resolution 94, which called to establish a committee of legal experts to make recommendations to the UN Secretary-General on the ways the General Assembly could encourage the progressive development of international law and its codification.

On November 21, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 174, which provided for the creation of an "International Law Commission" in order to fulfill the obligations of the Charter.

Under the leadership of Sir Michael Wood, the ILC undertook an authoritative effort to codify customary international law.

One venue of action for the commission in the codification of principles of international law is when requested to do so by the General Assembly.

In that case, the commission appoints one of its members as Special Rapporteur on that subject and prepares a plan of work regarding the issue in question.

Governments are requested to submit to the commission their written opinions on the issue in question, as specified in the plan of work.

Another venue of action is when the commission is requested either by a government, an inter-governmental organization or a UN agency to draft proposals for international conventions on various issues.

In that case, the commission formulates a plan of work and receives written opinions from governments on the issue in question.

In resolution 177 (November 21, 1947), the Assembly charged the commission with formulating principles based on the judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal and drafting a new code of offences against the peace of mankind.

Resolution 178 (of the same day) charged the commission with preparing a document on the rights and duties of states in international law.

The first session of the commission was held in Lake Success, New York, United States, from April 12 to June 9, 1949.

During that session, disagreement arose between the members as to whether the commission was entitled to include a topic on its agenda without prior consent of the General Assembly.

[9] Regarding the range of issues to be included in the agenda for the codification of international law, the commission decided to start working on a limited number of subjects at first.

For that reason, it was decided to exclude at the time the issue of laws of war from the commission's discussions.

The highest priority was given to the topics of law of treaties, arbitration, and regime of the sea, and rapporteurs were elected accordingly.

It was decided to exclude the issue of right of asylum from the proposed draft, and to discuss the matter further at the 2nd session.

[10] A large portion of the work on this issue was done by the Panamanian representative Ricardo Joaquín Alfaro Jované.

Already at the first meeting of that session, the Soviet member Koretsky protested that the People's Republic of China (PRC) was not represented on the commission, claiming it represented the Chinese people and not the Republic of China (ROC), now ruling in Taiwan only.

Commission chairman Scelle opposed the Soviet demand, claiming that each member represented his own legal views rather than any government position.

The commission accepted Hudson's position by the vote of 10 to 1, and Koretsky in protest left the session without attending any further meetings.

Much of the session was dedicated to the issue of arbitral procedure, on which the commission adopted a preliminary draft, consisting of 32 articles.

This decision led to General Assembly resolution 987, which paved the way to orderly publication of the commission's yearbook.

The 72nd session was originally scheduled to take place in 2020, but was postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and was eventually held in Geneva in two parts from April 26 to June 4 and from July 5 to August 6, 2021.

At the 63rd meeting on July 7, 1950, chairman Georges Scelle complained that governments tended to ignore questions addressed to them by the commission out of lack of interest in its work.

[19] One criticism sounded about the work of the commission is that the brevity of its annual sessions (10 to 12 weeks) does not allow thorough study of the problems under discussion.