The idea of developing international law through the restatement of existing rules is not of recent origin. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham proposed a codification of the whole of international law. Since his time, numerous attempts at codification have been made by private individuals, by learned societies and by governments. Enthusiasm for the "codification movement"—the name sometimes given to such attempts—generally stems from the belief that written international law would remove the uncertainties of customary international law by filling existing gaps in the law, as well as by giving precision to abstract general principles whose practical application is not settled.

MODERN ANTECEDENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION The intergovernmental effort to promote the codification and development of international law made an important advance with the resolution of the assembly of the League of Nations of 22 September 1924, envisaging the creation...