High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Abram Chayes (July 18, 1922 - April 16, 2000) was an American scholar of international law closely associated with the administration of John F. Kennedy. He is best known for his “legal process” approach to international law, which attempted to provide a new, less formalistic way of understanding international law and how it might further develop. By focusing on how international legal rules are actually used by foreign policy decision-makers, Chayes sought to study international law, not within a vacuum of legal rules and procedures, but in a dynamic political environment.