Globalizing the Latin American legal field: continental and regional approaches to the international legal order in Latin America

Juan Pablo Scarfi

doi:10.1590/0034-7329201800205

Abstract

Abstract Through an analysis of the international legal thought of Alejandro Alvarez, Ruy Barbosa, Isidro Fabela and Carlos Saavedra Lamas, this paper shows that Latin America played a vital and complex role in the reconfiguration of a new global legal order in the early twentieth century and the consolidation of the modern discipline of international law, as well as a specific legal field in Latin America. It argues that the region was a pioneer in the promotion of distinctive continental and regional approaches to international law and world peace before and after the creation of the League of Nations.

Highlights

Latin America seems to occupy an awkward place in global history, perhaps because it is not always clear whether it is in the West or the non-West
The quest for provincializing - American and Latin American - international law, as shown throughout this article, could be seen as an attempt to globalize the Latin American legal field, so that Latin American legal norms and Latin American jurists could play a central role in the world stage
Latin America as an unsettled region, and part of the American continent, played both an important and ambiguous role in the context of the new global legal order inaugurated with the creation of the League of Nations and the rise of the U.S as a global hegemonic power, as a region between the West and the non-West, between the U.S, Europe and what would later become the Third World

Summary

Introduction

Latin America seems to occupy an awkward place in global history, perhaps because it is not always clear whether it is in the West or the non-West. As shown throughout this article, while Alvarez and Barbosa supported a U.S.-led Pan-American liberal international legal vision and a monist continental approach to American international law based on ideas of solidarity, cooperation and neutrality, Fabela and Saavedra Lamas advocated a regional and defensive legal approach to Latin America international law, in defense of assertive notions of non-intervention and a pluralist understanding of other legal norms, traditions and institutions outside the region, especially European. This article focuses and draws on some of the writings, legal speeches and projects of four important figures: Alvarez, Barbosa, Fabela and Saavedra Lamas It proposes a comparative and qualitative analysis of the two main traditions of international legal and political thought in the Scarfi region, which resonated in the contemporary Latin American international society. The principles of law and liberty contributed to give shape to North America [...] Based on these principles of law and liberty it rests on this exemplary North American champion - the U.S - of American politics the mission to act in European politics, surrounded and followed by the Latin American nations, under the influence of its legal and moral attraction, like stars gravitating, towards a great ideal, to the orbits of peace and justice (Barbosa 1939, 164)

The Rise of a Regional and Defensive Latin American Approach

The Clash between the Two Legal Traditions

Conclusion