International law, scholarship and practice in international law mainly evolved in Universities and in Government. Most of the work done related to professors and practionners, diplomats and government lawyers, Judges were instrumental and lawyers arguing cases, albeit to a lesser degree with a number of exceptions active on the international stage.
A few institutions emerged the work of which is mainly or exclusively dedicated to international law teaching and studies beyond chairs at Universities. Again, Geneva assumes a leading role, given the neighbourhood of these institutions to the headquarters of the League of Nations and today one of the European headquarters of the United Nations, hosting inter alia the International Law Commission and the Human Rights Council, as well as the headquarters of the International Red Cross. The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies excels as a centre of international law studies, with a permanent international faculty and attracting students from all over the World. Equally, Geneva hosts the World Economic Forum. While mainly focusing on business and international relations, the studies undertaken are of importance to the development of international law, as much as the themes annually discussed at the Davos World Economic Forum. In German speaking Switzerland, institutions dealing mainly with public international law are essentially limited to the World Trade Institute, an interdisciplinary centre at the University of Bern, focussing on international trade regulation with a particular emphasis on the law of the World Trade Organization. The Centre for Human Rights a the University of Zurich particularly focuses on the role of the private sector in the process of implementing and realizing human rights in international economic relations. Both in Zurich and St. Gallen, master programmes exist which combine international law and economic law with a view to train lawyers and practionners in the field.