79th Biennial Conference (Opening)
29 November 2020
The Right Honorable Lord Mance, Honorable President Dr. Ward,
distinguished members of the International Law Association and its
Branches, distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a distinct privilege and pleasure for me to say a few words ofwelcome on behalf of the ILA Japan Branch at the Opening Plenary
Session of the 79th Biennial Conference of the ILA, the 2020 Kyoto
Conference. We had been looking forward to welcoming you in person tothe historic city of Kyoto in August. However, the worldwide spread ofcovid-19 made that impossible. After close consultations with the ILA
Headquarters and other Branches, the decision was made to go online a few
months later in the year. Even so, the event is still called “the 2020 KyotoConference”.
Allow me to tell you a bit about the history of the Japan Branchwhich was founded in 1920. This year’s Closing Plenary Session will beheld on December 13th, the very date on which the Japan Branch wasfounded 100 years ago. A British lawyer, Thomas Baty, was instrumental inestablishing the Japan Branch. He was a legal advisor to the Ministry ofForeign Affairs of Japan. The Japan Branch has steadily expanded its
activities ever since and has contributed to the development of internationallaw. It has grown to 332 members.
Back in 1964, the Japan Branch hosted the ILA’s Biennial
Conference in Tokyo, Japan. We had planned to host the conference for asecond time in 2014, that time in Kyoto. However, the earthquake andtsunami disaster of 2011 made that extremely difficult. As a result, theBiennial Conference in Kyoto was rescheduled for 2020 and the 2014conference was held instead in Washington D.C. I take this opportunity toonce again thank the American Branch for graciously hosting the 2014conference in spite of short notice.

1The main theme of the 79th Biennial Conference remains “Bridgingfor the Future”. The Kyoto Conference is intended to bridge the past,present and future while connecting the East, West, North and South.
Japan’s fundamental foreign policy is devoted to establishing andstrengthening the rule of law in international relations. I trust that the Kyoto
Conference will contribute to promoting this goal.
The Committees and Study Groups are the main engines that carryout the substantive work of the ILA. With close collaboration with theHeadquarters, this time 14 Committees and 5 Study Groups will meet also
online in the two weeks between the Opening Plenary and the Closing
Plenary. In addition, the Headquarters will host a series of Panels. Three ofthem will be specifically devoted to the work of selected young scholars,with December 9th designated as “Young Scholars Day”. I’m happy toreport that 348 participants have already registered including 26
scholarship students. Holding these meetings online presented newchallenges to all of us. I would like to recognize the tremendous efforts tomeet them under the leadership of Professor Bodeau Livinec, Director ofStudies of the ILA. I look forward to seeing the final reports andresolutions to be presented by several Committees for consideration andadoption by the Plenary. These documents will be the main products of the2020 Kyoto Conference.
With the help of the ILA Headquarters and Branches concerned, theJapan Branch has made every effort to prepare for a fruitful Biennial
Conference. One advantage of the online format is that it allows many
people to participate from all over the world without requiring expensive
international travel. On the other hand, it entails inevitably the problem oftime differences. For instance, a convenient schedule for London andKyoto is the middle of the night in some other places. To deal with thatcomplication, we are making video recordings of all parts of Plenary
sessions available so that participants can view them at convenience. Thisis based on the good suggestion of Lord Mance. Another positive aspect ofgoing online is that it opens the doors of the ILA Biennial Conference, andeven those of the ILA itself, to a wider range of participants, especially
young scholars and practitioners.
2For more than two years leading up to May 2020, the Japan Branch
had spent a significant amount of time, as well as human and financial
resources, preparing for the originally planned August Kyoto Conference inthe usual in-person format. The unavoidable switch to the online format
made much of that planning moot and created additional difficulties,
especially in finance and conference organization. I would like to thank theILA Headquarters and many Branches for kindly understanding these
difficulties and offering various forms of help, including financial
assistance. Their invaluable support has allowed the Japan Branch to go
forward with the Conference and into the future.
We had planned to open the Kyoto Conference with a culturalperformance, as was done in Sydney in 2018. However, with the moveonline, we had to cancel it. We also very much regret the loss of theopportunity to host ILA members, family, and guests from abroad in thebeautiful city of Kyoto. I earnestly hope that another chance will arise for
us to do so in the near future.
Shunji Yanai
President, ILA Japan Branch3