Seán MacBride

Nationality

Ireland

Date of Birth

1904

Date of Death

1988

Political
Preference

Republican

Born in Paris, Seán MacBride opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and was imprisoned during the Irish Civil War. After resigning from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1937, MacBride became a lawyer and defended many former IRA members. He established the Irish republican party in 1946, Clann na Poblachta. Internationally, as president of UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems, he was engaged with developing a code of conduct for fair employment for US companies operating in Northern Ireland.

As part of his international legal efforts, MacBride was Vice-President of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) from 1948 to 1951. In this role, he vigorously argued to strengthen the OEEC’s political dimension, by arguing for more gatherings of the OEEC at the ministerial level, and the creation of a ‘super representative’. He was supported in this regard by the American head of the Office of the Special Representative (OSR) Averell Harriman, who wanted the same thing, as well as Paul-Henri Spaak, who chaired the ministerial gatherings of the OEEC. In 1949 these efforts led to the creation of a Consultative Group of Ministers (CGM), and in 1950 even to the appointment of a Political Conciliator – to which the Dutch Foreign Minister Dirk Stikker was appointed.

MacBride saw the OEEC – and its strengthening of the political dimension – as a means to radiate a hopeful outlook on the economic future of Europe to the European people. His pleas for more ministerial involvement and even forms of supranational decision-making at the European level, must also be seen in opposition against the British stance within the OEEC – which was more favorable to intergovernmental forms, and even tried to limit more supranational forms.

In 1950, MacBride also became president of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.