It is a pleasure to speak to the annual dinner of the American Branch of the International Law Association. It is a particular pleasure to speak to the American Branch under the Presidency of Jim Nafziger. Jim and I are old comrades-in-arms. Let me say a word about the cause in which we especially fought.

When Jack Stevenson was President of the American Society of International Law, he invited me to become its Executive Director in 1967. One of the first challenges that Jack and I tackled was making the Jessup Competition international. Its substantive concern was of course already international, but at that time all the teams were American.

I had a special interest in the Jessup Competition for more than one reason. The idea of a moot court competition on topics of international law was Dick Baxter's. Dick, with whom I then jointly taught a basic course in international law at Harvard Law School, was full of ideas: another in which he played a seminal role was the creation of International Legal Materials. Dick enlisted me to write the problem for the Competition and to serve as one of the three judges.

I have wondered since whether that was a conflict of interest. I don't think so; for one thing, like many law school professors who ask questions, I did not know the answer; for another, the Jessup Competition does not turn on the right answer but the right argument.