ICIC Plenary Session, 1939.
The International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation was composed of independent members elected on the basis of their accomplishments and personal qualities. They originated from different countries and represented various fields of intellectual activity. The Committee set up sub-committees on subjects such as bibliography, intellectual property, arts and letters and higher education. Below is a selection of some of the key members of the Committee. For a more detailed list, see here.
The League of Nations was founded during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-20, an international effort to prevent war through diplomacy and collective security. The League's main organs included the Assembly, the Council, and the Secretariat. It also created other organs, including commissions, autonomous bodies, and technical and special bodies. The II Committee, in their Report on the Organisation of Intellectual Labour (1st Assembly, 18 December 1920), advocated to enlarge the scope of the League's concerns to "encourage, assist and consolidate" existing efforts in the domain of intellectual cooperation. It argued that "beside technical organisations devoted to labour, hygiene, economics, to communications and transit there should be placed, as their crown, a technical organisation devoted to the world's intellect."
Wilson Palace, Geneva, headquarters of the League of Nations and the ICIC.
The release of a report by the 5th Committee led to the adoption by the Assembly, on 21 September 2021, of a resolution establishing "a Committee to examine intellectual questions regarding intellectual co-operation, this Committee to consist of not more than 12 members and to contain both men and women." The Intellectual Committee on Intellectual Cooperation was thus established in Geneva on 4 January 1922. The ICIC met from 1922 to 1939, and in 1930 established an Executive Council. For a fuller description of ICIC key events and documents, see the guide Initial Steps and Institution of the ICIC by the United Nations Office in Geneva.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941), France, 1922-1925
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928), Netherlands, 1925 -1927
Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), United Kingdom, 1927-1946
The United Nations Library & Archives Geneva, previously the League of Nations Library, keeps the archives of the League of Nations and the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC).
