The project has crafted a tailor-made methodology to analyze how the League of Nations sought to contribute to the juridification of international relations by codifying international law. It consists of a unique combination of macro- and microlevel analysis: on the macro-level, the approach has encompassed a transnational examination of the incentives of both the studied international organization and its leading member states when it came to developing international law, through the exploration of their respective public archives. Throughout the course of the project, several key public archive collections were explored. Foremost among these was the extensive archive of the League of Nations, boasting a vast repository of over fourteen million digitized documents, including a multitude of files related to the codification project. In addition to the League of Nations' archives, our research has leaned upon the publicly accessible archives of France, Germany, and Britain, particularly focusing on documents from their respective Foreign Ministries.
At the micro-level of our analysis, we have placed a magnifying glass on the pivotal role played by key individuals in the League of Nations' efforts to promote and shape international legal instruments. Two prominent figures have emerged as central actors in this project. Manley O. Hudson and Arthur Sweetser, both from the United States, served as crucial intermediaries between Washington and Geneva, facilitating communication and collaboration. Delving into their private archives has proven instrumental in gaining profound insights into their roles in persuading the League to undertake the codification project and understanding their motivations. Their personal networks and relationships with national decision-makers have emerged as fundamental factors in deciphering the diplomatic dimensions of the League's promotion of international law. By combining this biographical analysis with relevant theoretical concepts from the sociology of law, the new insights of the project allowed to explore how jurists adeptly navigate between various international and national roles to exert influence on legal developments, both within and outside the League.
