Ecuador and the Eleventh Inter-American Conference

1968 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jeanne Reid Martz

Amid the aura of urgency in which many today view hemispheric affairs, criticisms of the Organization of American States are legion. In both Latin America and the United States, there are growing numbers who believe that the only viable alternative to complete systemic collapse is a radical organizational transformation. For critics of the inter-American organization, there has been a sharp predilection to place the burden of their argument on either a cataloguing of bureaucratic ills or a polemic attack upon the problems and inconsistencies of United States involvement. And certainly various North American actions and policies have helped contribute to the present precarious position of the OAS.

2007 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Arceneaux ◽  
David Pion-Berlin

AbstractOver time, the Organization of American States has become institutionally and normatively more capable of defending democracy in the region. Yet the OAS is as selective in its interventions on behalf of democratic promotion today as it was in the early 1990s. To explain this puzzle, this study disaggregates democratic dilemmas according to issue areas, threats, and contingencies. It finds that the OAS responds more forcefully when the problem presents a clear and present danger both to the offending state and to other members. As threats become weaker or more ambiguous, the OAS tends to act more timidly, unless domestic constituencies cry out for its assistance or the United States puts its full weight behind the effort. Case study capsules provide empirical evidence to illustrate these arguments.


1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Dreier

The present critical stage of inter-American relations offers a timely occasion for an inquiring glance at the Organization of American States (OAS). For more than half a century—and particularly during the last two decades—the United States has increasingly adapted its policy toward Latin America to the principles and procedures of the Organization of American States, confident that such an approach would best serve our long-range objectives in the hemisphere. Yet the varying responses which the United States has gained from the regional agency when problems of high importance have been submitted to it constitute one of the most confusing aspects of our hemisphere relations. The last few years have provided a striking illustration of this point.


1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Meek

Literature on U.S. influence in the Organization of American States reveals a marked diversity of views. Some authors consider that U.S. influence is absolute or very nearly so; others hold that it is relative; still others think it is minimal.In the nearly-absolute school, former Guatemalan President Arévalo (1961: 126) says that the United States “always wins” in the OAS. The Ecuadorian writer Benjamín Cardón (1965: 29) says that the OAS “receives orders and complies with them, with the appearance of discussion, and the appearance of votes that satisfy pro-forma the hypocritical quakerism of the masters.” This view might be summed up by a comment attributed to a Latin American delegate to one Inter-American Conference: “If the United States wanted to badly enough, it could have a resolution passed declaring two and two are five ” (New York Times, March 8, 1954).


1967 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-220

The Organization of American States (OAS) Council met in Washington, D.C., in secret session on April 29, 1965, at the request of the United States to consider the crisis which had arisen in the Dominican Republic. This crisis had been brought about by the overthrow on April 25–26 of a three-man civilian junta which had ruled the Dominican Republic since 1963. Civil ar had almost immediately broken out between supporters of former President Juan Bosch, led by Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó and military units headed by Brigadier General Elias Wessin y Wessin, who was one of the leaders of the coup which had overthrown Bosch in 1963.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 714-727
Author(s):  
Bryce Wood ◽  
Minerva Morales M.

When the governments of the Latin American states were taking part in the negotiations leading to the founding of the UN, they could hardly have done so with nostalgic memories of the League of Nations. The League had provided no protection to the Caribbean countries from interventions by the United States, and, largely because of United States protests, it did not consider the Tacna-Arica and Costa Rica-Panama disputes in the early 1920's. Furthermore, Mexico had not been invited to join; Brazil withdrew in 1926; and Argentina and Peru took little part in League affairs. The organization was regarded as being run mainly for the benefit of European states with the aid of what Latin Americans called an “international bureaucracy,” in which citizens from the southern hemisphere played minor roles. The United States was, of course, not a member, and both the reference to the Monroe Doctrine by name in Article 21 of the Covenant and the organization's practice of shunning any attempt to interfere in inter-American affairs against the wishes of the United States made the League in its first decade a remote and inefficacious institution to countries that were seriously concerned about domination by Washington.


1962 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-257 ◽  

The press announced that the Inter-American Economic and Social Council met in Punta del Este, Uruguay, under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS) from August 5 to 17, 1961. A draft act embodying the principles of the “Alliance for Progress” plan for the economic development of Latin America envisaged by the United States was put before the meeting by the delegates of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States, according to press reports. Mr. Douglas Dillon, United States Secretary of the Treasury, promised that his government would provide active assistance in the form of development loans running up to 50 years, but Mr. Dillon made it clear that the development scheme depended on the local programs for social and economic advancement. It was noted that aside from the United States offers, some European and odier countries had indicated that they would take part in development programs in the area.


Worldview ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-20
Author(s):  
John Tessitore

Last November nearly two thousand conferees from the United States and twenty-six Caribbean nations gathered in that most Caribbean of all cities, Miami. The occasion was the annual conference on trade, investment, and development in the Caribbean Basin—die seventh such conference to date. This year, however, there was a difference. President Reagan had announced his Caribbean Basin Initiative in February of 1982 at a meeting of the Organization of American States; and on August 5, 1983, following often delicate negotiations with Congress and a score of governments, the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act became law.


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