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Attempting to Secure an “Orderly Evolution”: American Foundations, The Hague Academy of International Law and the Third World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2007

GILES SCOTT-SMITH
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Abstract

The Hague Academy of International Law was founded in 1923 with funds from the Carnegie Endowment, and soon established itself as one of the premier institutes in its field. However, after the Second World War the Carnegie was joined by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in a coordinated programme to modernize the institution and increase its international influence. The Foundations, contributing to the broad goals of US foreign policy, were keen to make use of this Dutch institution to build an “epistemic community” among the elites of the newly-decolonizing Third World. The academy thereby became an important normative institution involved in a broad strategy to ensure a smooth transition from a colonial to a postcolonial world order. This article traces the evolution of the academy and the consequences of its intersection with large-scale US philanthropy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 2007 , pp. 509 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 Robert J. McMahon, “Introduction: The Challenge of the Third World,” in Peter L. Hahn and Mary A. Heiss, eds., Empire and Revolution: The United States and the Third World since 1945 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2001), 1–10, quote on p. 1.

2 Ibid., 2–3; Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower's New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–61 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 126; David D, Newsom, The Imperial Mantle: The United States, Decolonization, and the Third World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), 144–45.

3 Caroline Pruden, Conditional Partners: Eisenhower, the United Nations, and the Search for a Permanent Peace (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 16–31, 173–75; quote on p. 27.

4 National Security Council minutes, 18 Jan. 1956, quoted in Dockrill, 171; MacMahon, “Introduction,” 5; Robert A. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

5 Dockrill, 168–77; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 376–81.

6 Pruden, 188, 197; Dockrill, 173. In 1956 two-thirds of the US aid budget, $2 billion, was being given to six strategic states: Turkey, Vietnam, Iran, Pakistan, Taiwan and South Korea.

7 See Jerome Karabell, Architects of Intervention: The United States, the Third World, and the Cold War, 1946–1962 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1999); Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account Of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952–1954 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

8 Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2004), 7, 10–11.

9 McMahon, “Introduction,” 9.

10 See Elizabeth C. Hoffman, “Decolonization, the Cold War, and the Foreign Policy of the Peace Corps,” in Hahn and Heiss, Empire and Revolution, 123–53.

11 Liping Bu, “Educational Exchange and Cultural Diplomacy in the Cold War,” Journal of American Studies, 33 (1999), 407.

12 Liping Bu, Making the World Like Us: Education, Cultural Expansion, and the American Century (Greenwood, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2003).

13 For example, in 1960 Dean Rusk moved from the Rockefeller Foundation to the State Department, and in 1967 McGeorge Bundy moved from being national security adviser to working at the Ford Foundation. Edward H. Berman, The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983), 5.

14 Berman, 67–98. See also Robert Arnove, ed., Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980); Munslow, Alun, “Andrew Carnegie and the Discourse of Cultural Hegemony,” Journal of American Studies, 22 (1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 On the notion of a “beachhead” institution see Giuliana Gemelli, “Western Alliance and Scientific Diplomacy in the Early 1960s: The Rise and Failure of the Project to Create a European M.I.T.,” in R. Laurence Moore and Maurizio Vaudagna, eds., The American Century in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 171–94.

16 Haas, Peter M., “Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization, 46 (1992), 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quote on p. 3.

17 Ibid., 27.

18 On the importance of transnational knowledge networks and the role of think tanks in sustaining them, see Stone, Diane, “The Changing Think Tank Landscape,” Global Society, 14 (April 2000), 149–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Knowledge Networks and Global Policy,” paper presented for the CEEISA/ISA conference, Budapest, June 2003.

19 Haas, 17. This fits closely with those scholars who have used Gramscian approaches to analyse the specific role of elites in establishing norms supportive of US hegemonic strategy. See Berman, 5, 13; Fisher, Donald, “The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and Production of Hegemony,” Sociology, 17 (1983), 206–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Enrico Augelli and Craig Murphy, America's Quest for Supremacy and the Third World: A Gramscian Analysis (London: Pinter, 1988); Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-war American Hegemony (London: Routledge, 2002); Inderjeet Parmar, Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

20 J. A. Schoneveld, “Tussen Atlantica en Europa: Over Opkomst en Ondergang van de Spagaat in de Nederlandse Buitenlandse Politiek,” Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, 2000, 30–39; Joris C. Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles: A Study of Dutch Foreign Policy (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1979); Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).

21 J. C. C. Rupp, Van Oude en Nieuwe Universiteiten: De Verdringing van Duitse door Amerikaanse Invloeden op de Wetenschapsbeoefening en het Hoger Onderwijs in Nederland, 1945–1995 (The Hague: Sdu, 1997). See also Scott-Smith, G., “The Ties that Bind: Dutch—American Relations, US Public Diplomacy, and the Promotion of American Studies since World War II,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2, 3 (November 2007), 283–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Rupp, 92–93. Lieftinck went on to become minister of finance, 1945–52, then a director of the World Bank. Tinbergen, through his development of “econometrics” and the study of business cycles in economic activity, became one of the most influential economists of his generation.

23 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Jaarverslag 1959, 4.

24 Gorter, H., “News from Abroad,” Physics Today, 1 (1948), 9, 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Country Plan for USIS The Hague, 30 January 1953, 511.56/1-3053, RG 59, National Archives, Washington DC.

26 G. Ruygers, “In de Maalstroom der Wereldpolitiek,” in idem, ed., Socialisme in de Branding (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1952), 240–42; D. Hellema, Neutraliteit en Vrijhandel: De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Buitenlandse Betrekkingen (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 2001), 201–4.

27 Tinbergen, Jan, “De Internationale Taak van de Sociaal-Democratie,” Socialisme en Democratie, 14 (1957), 84–89Google Scholar; Tity de Vries, Complexe Consensus: Amerikaanse en Nederlandse Intellectuelen in Debat over Politiek en Cultuur 1945–1960 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1996), 267–68.

28 James C. Kennedy, Nieuw Babylon in Aanbouw: Nederland in de Jaren Zestig, (Amsterdam: Boom, 1995), 73–76.

29 Rupp, Van Oude en Nieuwe Universiteiten, 253, 267–78. The cooperative nature of ISS is demonstrated by a US embassy report that states that “Professor Teaf, a 1953 American [Fulbright] grantee, assisted in its beginnings” and that the US Information Service “will keep in close touch, ready to assist in every possible way.” “American Studies Inventory and Survey,” US Embassy The Hague to Dept. of State, 31 Jan. 1957, 511.563 1955–1959, Box 2/63, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC.

30 “Ford Foundation grants to the Netherlands 1951–2002,” Ford Foundation archive, New York (hereafter “Ford”). Not all of the grants to the ISS were for development work. The $25,000 sum from 1958 was used to support a conference on European assemblies (such as the West European Union, Council of Europe, assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community) and the need to clarify the democratization process within European integration.

31 On the academy's history see K. Skubiszewski, “The Contribution of the Academy to the Development of the Science and Practice of Public Law,” Recueil des cours, 271 (1998), 57–100.

32 “Hague Academy of International Law” (discussion between Hiss and Rockefeller Foundation officers Joseph Willitts and Bryce Wood), 15 March 1958, Rockefeller Foundation archive (hereafter “Rockefeller”), Record Group (hereafter “RG”) 1.2, Series 450, Sub-series 5, Box 8.

33 Gilbert Gidel (president of the Curatorium) to Chester I. Barnard (president, Rockefeller Foundation), 27 Oct. 1948; Joseph Willits to Van Kleffens, 11 May 1949, RG 1.2, Series 650, Sub-series 5, Box 8, Rockefeller; “Record of Dealings between the Ford Foundation and the Hague Academy,” 14 June 1956, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

34 It is possible Van Kleffens was behind a sympathetic piece in the New York Times (“World Law Academy Fears End of US Aid,” 21 March 1949) which was clearly intended to have an influence on foundation decision-making.

35 In 1956 he was also made an honorary member of the American Society for International Law by, among others, Rockefeller Foundation president Dean Rusk. van Kleffens, E. N., “The Hague Academy of International Law: An Aid to the Diffusion and to a Clearer Notion of the Law of Nations,” British Yearbook of International Law, 6 (1925), 172–86Google Scholar; idem, Belevenissen: Deel I (Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff, 1980), 287; Eleanor H. Finch (ASIL) to Van Kleffens, 7 May 1956, File 56, Archive of E. N. van Kleffens, National Archives, The Hague (hereafter “Van Kleffens”).

36 Bryce Wood to Hiss, 7 April 1948; Joseph Willitts, memo: “James Shotwell, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,” 9 May 1949, RG 1.2, Series 650, Sub-series 5, Box 8, Rockefeller.

37 Joseph Willitts, memo: “The Hague Academy of International Law: John Foster Dulles, Telephone Conversation,” 16 October 1951, RG 1.2, Series 650, Sub-series 5, Box 8, Rockefeller.

38 On the report see Francis X. Sutton, “The Ford Foundation: The Early Years,” Daedalus, 66 (1987), 46–51.

39 Van Kleffens to Ford, 13 Oct. 1950; “Record of Dealings between the Ford Foundation and the Hague Academy,” 14 June 1956, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

40 Van Kleffens to Paul Hoffman, 6 March 1951 and 13 Sept. 1951; “Record of Dealings between the Ford Foundation and the Hague Academy,” 14 June 1956, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

41 In February 1952 James W. Riddleberger, newly appointed chief of the Bureau for German Affairs at the State Department, wrote in support of the Academy's case. Riddleberger had previously worked under Milton Katz in the European Cooperation Administration (ECA), and Katz had since then joined his ECA colleague Paul Hoffman at the Ford Foundation. In September 1953 Dutch ambassador Van Roijen approached Foundation president Rowan Gaither for a long-term grant of $1 million. “Record of Dealings between the Ford Foundation and the Hague Academy,” 14 June 1956, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

42 S. J. R. de Monchy (president of Administrative Council) to H. C. L. Merillat, 14 Dec. 1956, Grant 57–145, Reel 0552, Ford.

43 Newsom, Imperial Mantle, 129–30.

44 Kenneth Thompson, “Some Impressions of the Hague Academy of International Law,” 13 Sept. 1954, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

45 Corbett to Joseph E. Johnson (president, Carnegie Endowment), 7 Sept. 1954, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford.

46 “Record of Dealings,” 14 June 1956; Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford; Rupp, Van Oude en Nieuwe Universiteiten, 79. On the centre see B. Boutros-Ghali, “Le Centre d’étude et de recherche de droit international et de relations internationales de l'Académie de droit international de La Haye,” in R. J. Dupuy, ed., The Hague Academy of International Law: Jubilee Book 1923–1973 (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1973), 139–53. See also the range of international students who attended between 1957–72, pp. 225–7.

47 “Speeches 1956–61,” File 38, Van Kleffens.

48 Jessup had been a student at the academy in 1923 and lectured there in 1929. The US representative on the UN Security Council in 1948, he served on the academy's Curatorium from 1957–68 and with the International Court of Justice from 1961–70.

49 In a further effort to establish relations with the Ford Foundation, the Curatorium nearly offered influential Ford Foundation “insider” Milton Katz the Carnegie Endowment lecturer position in 1957. In the end the position went to Hardy Dillard. Philip C. Jessup, “Report on the Hague Academy of International Law,” Aug. 1956, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford; Sutton, “The Ford Foundation,”, 28–29.

50 Jessup, “Report.” Boutros-Ghali became one of the directors of the Centre d’études in 1963–64 and later joined the Curatorium. See Daniel Bardonnet, “L'Académie de droit international de la Haye et M. Boutros Boutros-Ghali,” in B. Boutros-Ghali, ed., Amicorum Discipulorumque Liber, vol. 1 (Brussels: Bruylant, 1998), pp. 135–50.

51 Howard to Merillat, 4 Oct. 1956; Merillat to Price, 11 Nov. 1956, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

52 “International Research and Training: The Hague Academy of International Law (Draft),” 19 Dec. 1956, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford; Meeting of the Executive Committee, 21 March 1957, Grant 51-20, Reel 0552, Ford. On the issue of Asian participants Thompson had witnessed one unfortunate incident: “The cause celebre among the students at this time was a professor R. N. Chowdhuri of India who has written widely in professional journals in international law and according to all accounts is a brilliant and penetrating observer. He was recommended by McNair and Hsu Mo in the preliminary screening [of candidates for the Diploma] but somehow passed over by the two French authorities [Gidel and his secretary-general Georges Scelle] despite appeals by some of his colleagues.” Kenneth Thompson, “Some Impressions.”

53 Merillat to Price, 20 Dec. 1956; Joseph M. McDaniel Jr. (secretary of the Ford Foundation) to S. J. R. de Monchy (president of Executive Council), 27 March 1957, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

54 “Hague Academy of International Law: Impressions of 1957 Sessions,” Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

55 Becker had been in the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps during the Second World War before becoming the CIA's deputy director for intelligence under Walter Bedell Smith in 1951–52. In 1959 he became the European chief for the legal firm Cahill, Gordon, Reindel and Ohl. Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1992), 301; Julius Mader, Who's Who in CIA (Berlin, 1968), 56.

56 In 1956 Jessup recorded meeting “an assistant professor of international law from Poznan, Poland, who was very alert, intelligent, and almost too eager to convince one that he was not wholly tied to the party line.” Rupp, Van Oude en Nieuwe Universiteiten, 79–80, footnote; The Hague Academy of International Law Bulletin, (1995), 55–61; “Budget of the Hague Academy of International Law: 1951”; and Jessup, “Report.”

57 It is notable that in 1965 only eight Dutch auditors attended, about the same number as from Pakistan. Report to the Ford Foundation 1965, 22 Oct. 1965, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

58 McNair to Henry T. Heald, 26 April 1960, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

59 Jessup to Howard, 20 May 1960; Executive Committee meeting, 8 Dec. 1960, Grant 57-145, Reel 0552, Ford.

60 In 1966 the Hammarskjöld seminar was moved to the new headquarters of the foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. In return the foundation provided extra funds to bring African university lecturers and students to The Hague for the regular summer sessions. See Dupuy, Jubilee Book 1923–1973, 228–29.

61 “Report on the Method of Spending the Following Grants from the Ford Foundation to the Hague Academy of International Law and the Achievements Arrived at,” Sept.–Oct. 1974, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

62 On Friedmann's impressive reputation see Charles Leben, “By Way of Introduction,” European Journal of International Law, 8, 3 (1997), pp. 399–408 and Weiler, J. H. H. and Paulus, Andreas, “The Structure of Change in International Law,” European Journal of International Law, 8, 4 (1997), pp. 545–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Between 1967 and 1974, 48 doctoral scholars completed their studies at the academy, including six Egyptians, four Nigerians, four Romanians and two from the Soviet Union. “Report on the Method of Spending the Following Grants,” Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

64 Prof. F. Castberg and Prof. Dr. J. E. de Quay to Dr. Howard R. Swearer, 27 Nov. 1968; “Report on the Method of Spending the Following Grants,” Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

65 Castberg and de Quay to Swearer, 27 Nov. 1968, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford; “Financial Aspects of the Academy,” in Dupuy, 237.

66 Castberg and de Quay to Swearer, 27 Nov. 1968, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

67 “Hague Academy of International Law,” n.d. [1969], File 58, Van Kleffens.

68 Ibid.; Herman van Roijen to Bundy, 27 Feb. 1975, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford. On the programme see R. J. Dupuy, “Le Programme extérieur,” in Dupuy, 160–73, 230–32.

69 Giuliana Gemelli, ed., The Ford Foundation and Europe (Brussels: European Interuniversity Press, 1998), quote on p. 10; Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 186–87, 241–49; Ellen Lagemann, ed., Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Perspectives (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999).

70 By this stage annual subsidies were being given to the academy by several countries, but requests for support from the US government were denied. “Financial Aspects of the Academy,” in Dupuy, 235–36; The Hague to Dept. of State, 19 Feb. 1971, Subject-Numeric Files 1970–1973, POL: Box 2496, National Archives, Washington, DC.

71 Newsom, Imperial Mantle, 129–32, 176–77; Joan E. Spero and Jeffrey A. Hart, The Politics of International Economic Relations (London: Routledge, 1997), 177–78, 276–82.

72 David E. Bell (Ford Foundation vice president) to McGeorge Bundy, 25 May 1970, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

73 Bell to Bundy, 25 May 1970, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

74 Van Roijen's letter did prompt this internal memo: “international lawyers are a remarkably persistent lot and this group, like the others, has many important friends in high places. You will note that the application came in to Mr Bundy.” Van Roijen to Bundy, 27 Feb. 1975; Bundy to Van Royen, 26 March 1975; Felice D. Gaer to Crawford Goodwin, 12 May 1975; Goodwin to Bell and Frank Sutton, 14 May 1975; Gaer to Van Roijen, 4 June 1975, Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

75 “Hague Academy of International Law,” n.d., Grant 65-158, Reel 3052, Ford.

76 Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage, 1955), 158.

77 Dr. J. H. van Roijen, “Holland and the Hague Academy of International Law,” Recueil des cours, 138 (1973), 29–30; Gormley, W. Paul, “The Hague Academy of International Law: A Study in Intercultural Education and Communication,” Journal of Legal Education, 13, 4 (1961), 512–15Google Scholar, quote on 513.

78 It now receives contributions from 38 countries. While the Dutch fund the Centre d’études, the summer programme is financed predominantly from French sources. “Grants to the Academy,” http://www.hagueacademy.nl/eng-home.html (8 July 2003).