FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. Ill 



ARTICLE 33. The Second Pan American Scientific Congress extends to the 

 American Institute of International Law a cordial welcome into 

 the circles of scientific organizations of Pan America, and records 

 a sincere wish for its successful career and the achievement of the 

 highest aims of its important labors. 



The welcome extended by the Congress to the American Institute of 

 International Law was the culmination of a remarkable series of reso- 

 lutions adopted by legal, political, and scientific assemblies officially 

 representing all of the American Republics, because, as will be seen, the 

 Pan American Union tendered a vote of commendation and encourage- 

 ment shortly before the meeting of the Congress to the founders and 

 members of the Institute, and the Commission of American Jurists, 

 assembled at Rio de Janeiro to consider the codification of international 

 law, adopted on July 16, 1912, a resolution "commending the initiative 

 taken to found an American Institute of International Law, as the com- 

 mittee considers an institution of this kind of great usefulness to assist 

 in the work of codification that the statesmen of the New World have 

 in view." 



It is difficult to explain the origin and development of the American 

 Institute of International Law in briefer and more apt terms than those 

 employed by His Excellency Sr. BDUARDO SUAREZ MUJICA, the Chilean 

 Ambassador, President of the Congress, who, at the meeting of the Gov- 

 erning Board of the Pan American Union, held on December i, 1915, 

 moved a resolution of encouragement to the founders of the Institute, 

 and who, in the remarks upon his motion, unanimously carried by the 

 Governing Board, spoke as follows: 



As my colleagues are undoubtedly aware, in October, 1912, the founda- 

 tions were laid in Washington for an organization of a most interesting 

 character. Under the auspices of the prominent internationalists of the 

 whole world, under the honorary presidency and the wise counsel of the 

 ex-Secretary of State and distinguished North American statesman 

 Mr. ELIHU ROOT, and through the unremitting and intelligent effort of 

 two men of action and scholars, well known to the international world, 

 Messrs. JAMES BROWN SCOTT and ALEJANDRO ALVAREZ, there was born 

 into the realm of scientific life the American Institute of International Law, 

 the object of which is, briefly stated, to combine and utilize, through a 

 central organization in Washington and the cooperation of affiliated or 

 corresponding associations in all the other American nations, the intellec- 

 tual efforts of jurists and thinkers of the continent, for the development of 

 international law, the generalization of its principles, and the adoption 

 of a common standard to insure the enforcement of law and justice among 

 the countries of the New World. 



