The International Law Association (ILA) was founded in Brussels in 1873. The ILA now has some 3,500 members in 45 national and regional branches around the world. It is headquartered in London under the Chairmanship of the Right Honourable The Lord Mance. The main objectives of the ILA are the study and development of public and private international law, which occurs through the work of 24 committees and 5 study groups concerned with subjects of current and ongoing interest. The ILA has consultative status as an international non-government organization with a number of the United Nations specialized agencies.
Since 1873, the work of the ILA committees has been leading the way on some of the most important questions in international business law and world issues. ILA committees have articulated common principles and emerging standards on topics ranging form bills of exchange (1876, 1908, 1910), aviation in time of peace (1920), international arbitration (1895, 1922, 1938, 1948, 1950), international insolvency (1938, 1946) and civil jurisdiction over corporations (2002), to a permanent international criminal court (1922, 1923), effect of war on contracts (1930), international insolvency (1938, 1954), rights to the seabed and subsoil; inland water rights; international waterways and rivers (1948, 1954, 1960, 1962), the peaceful uses of nuclear energy (1960, 1962), monetary law (1954, 1960), arbitral tribunals for foreign investment (1962) and accountability of international organizations (2004).
Reports and resolutions of ILA committees have been adopted or relied upon by the United Nations and other international lawmaking bodies in developing many of the texts that comprise international law as we know it today. The ILA’s work has been influential on many developments including state immunity (European and UN Conventions on State Immunity) and the work at The Hague on the Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments. Resolutions, reports and other publications of the ILA have been referred to in recent years in judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the House of Lords.