The International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation

The International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation

The former royal palaces of central Paris, including the Louvre and the Palais Royal, have provided capacious accommodation for national and international organisations committed to liberal and republican ideals ever since 1789. In 1925, the French government provided space in the Palais Royal for the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation (IIIC), intended as an administrative centre for the under-resourced International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation (ICIC), established three years earlier by the League of Nations to promote internationalism through science, education and culture. The direct precursor of UNESCO, which was initially headquartered in the Hôtel Majestic during the late 1940s and 1950s, the IIIC organised International Studies Conferences and commissioned research projects throughout the interwar years. The Palais Royal rooms occupied by the IIIC between the wars are now used by the Conseil Constitutionel, established in October 1958 under the constitution of the French Fifth Republic to ensure that all laws passed in France are constitutionally legitimate.