474 J.-A. PEMBERTON
given that it touched on so many controversial issues.^158 In addition to
the reports on sovereignty and national independence, the conference
heard reports on the methods employed by the prospective authors of
UNESCO’s planned ‘national way of life’ monograph series. In regard to
the focus of discussion at its next meeting, the conference resolved that
in light of the Utrecht resolution, a small group of experts should meet
in the first part of 1950 to discuss the ‘teaching of international relations
as an independent subject in universities.’^159
In relation to the status of international relations as an independent
subject of study, it is worth drawing attention to a speech given by Jaime
Torres Bodet, who had been appointed director-general of UNESCO
in 1948, at the conference’s inaugural meeting of which Torres Bodet
was the chair. In his speech, Torres Bodet alerted conference participants
to a problem on which he thought they needed to reflect: ‘the relations
between the ISC and the new associations being formed in the social
sciences’ under the auspices of UNESCO.^160
(^159) International Social Science Bulletin 1, nos. 3–4 (1949), 95. See also Goodwin, pref-
ace to Goodwin ed., The University Teaching of International Relations, 5, and Manning,
‘International Relations: An Academic Discipline,’ 11.
(^160) Jaime Torres Bodet, 1949, quoted in International Social Science Bulletin 1, nos. 3–4
(1949), 93–4. Before taking up his post at UNESCO, Jaime Torres Bodet had served as a
diplomat and minister in the Mexican government. His view of international relations was
‘shaped by an acute awareness of the limitations imposed by national attitudes on the inter-
national scene.’ See T. V. Sathyamurthy, ‘Twenty Years of UNESCO: An Interpretation’,
International Organization 21, no. 3 (1967): 614–33, 618.
(^158) Ibid., 94–95. Vernant noted in 1950 the following: ‘The work thus set on foot by
the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation through the International Studies
Conference was finally crowned with success. To it is due, today, the desire, which has been
expressed repeatedly since the end of the second world war, to underline yet more firmly
the scientific and non-official character of an Organization whose members are pledged to
work together to bring about a greater understanding of international matters and to refuse
to be the mere echoes of official views. It was in this spirit that the International Studies
Conference undertook, in 1947, a new enterprise in research: “The Sovereignty of Nations
in Modern International Life”. Its members were to present 15 important statements on
this subject at the Conference’s Fourteenth Session. These statements have not so far been
published, except for a few of which were issued by the National Institutes or Committees
that were responsible for drafting them. The members of the Conference. have, in fact,
since the war taken the view that in the case of subject matter as delicate as that with which
they had to deal it was better only to resort to publication in cases when, after careful con-
sideration such publication was deemed especially useful.’ Vernant, ‘International Relations:
The Work of the International Studies Conference,’ 58.