Fortunes of a Profession: American Foundations and International Law, 1910–1939
[Article]
/ Katharina Rietzler
0826-1360
In the Progressive Era largescale foundation philanthropy emerged at the same time as the American international law community gained in professional standing and political influence. From the 1900s, international lawyers forged a strategic alliance in particular with Carnegie philanthropy. After the First World War, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund also gave grants to international lawyers, even if they preferred projects informed by sociological jurisprudence. All three foundations supported the Harvard Research in International Law, the most significant private attempt at codifying international law in the twentieth century. Although foundation support for international law waned in the 1930s, the Harvard Research served as a template for the post1945 international legal order. Ultimately, foundation support for the research was conditioned by how international law related to American power in the world.