International > Report by the committee on the work of its ... plenary session > Thirteenth plenary session

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more general questions, its discussions can be maintained at a higher level, and it will
thus perform its essential function. Moreover, the Executive Committee has proved
indispensable from the point of view of the work itself ; this would constantly have been
held up if it had been necessary to await the decisions of the plenary Committee, which
meets only once a year.
fb) Committees of Experts.
The second reform, proposed by the Committee of Enquiry and subsequently accepted
by the plenary Committee, consists in the establishment of the system of Committees
of Experts. The object of this system is to ensure that any given question shall be
studied by the most competent persons available. Tt has thus been possible to do away
with intermediate bodies which retarded the work, as was the case with the sub-committees.
The Committees of Experts are of three types :
The first or ordinary type is the small committee set up for a limited period to study
a special question. Experts of the second type are those having a longer term of office
who are asked to consider questions involving enquiries spread over several years. The
third type is the committee set up to make a preliminary study of a question in order
to decide whether it should be placed on the intellectual co-operation programme or not.
A list of the Committees of Experts is given below ; it includes all meetings which,
although they do not bear that name, come in practice within the same category.
1. University Questions and Education.
(a) Executive Committee of the Conference of institutions for the scientific study
of international relations (type 2) ;
(b) Joint committee of representatives of institutions for the scientific study of
international relations and of the Sub-Committee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth
in the Aims of the League (type 2) ;
(c) Conference of institutions for the scientific study of international relations (type 2);
(d) Committee of representatives of international students’ organisations (type 2);
(e) Meeting of the directors of national university offices (type 2) ;
(j) Delegation of the Sub-Committee of Experts for the instruction of youth in the
aims of the League (type 2).
2. Arts and Letters.
(a) Directors’ Committee of the International Museums Office (type 2);
(b) International Conference for the study of scientific methods in the examination
and preservation of works of art (type 1) ;
(c) Bureau of the International Committee on popular arts (type 2) ;
(d) Publication Committee of the Ibero-American collection (type 2) ;
(e) Permanent Committee on arts and letters (type 2).
3. Science and. Documentation.
(a) Committee of library experts (type 2) ;
(b) Committee of expert archivists (type 3) ;
fc) Committee of scientific advisers (type 3).
4. Intellectual Rights.
Meeting of legal institutions making a special study of intellectual rights (type 3).
Up to the present, therefore, there have been fifteen meetings of committees of experts
or similar meetings. Eleven were of the second type — committees of experts with a long
term of office. The first type was represented by only one conference — a temporary
committee set up for the study of a special question. The third type, appointed for the
preliminary study of certain questions, was represented by three meetings.
What were the results of those meetings'?
A rapid glance at the list will suffice to show the close connection which now exists
between the organisation and the work it is called upon to undertake. The old system had
revealed the absence of this connection. Henceforward the organisation will be determined
by the work. It is no longer a matter of fitting a question into a rigid framework by some
means or other ; the nature of the question now determines the framework.
The present system has other advantages also : (1) from the point of view of the actual
work, which is now entrusted to those best qualified to undertake it; (2) from the point
of view of the experts who are called upon to co-operate in the international field and are
thus given an opportunity to see for themselves that the League desires to be of service
to intellectual life ; (3) finally, from the point of view of the League itself which associates
the “ League of Human Intellects ” in its work.
At first sight, these committees might appear too numerous, although, if their members
were added together, there would be not more than 100 or 150 names. That is a very