International Law as Faith. The Cuban Intervention and the Narrative of 1898

Abstract

Abstract The second chapter illustrates the function of faith in James Brown Scott’s theory of international law through an account of his understanding of the role of the United States in American continental relations. Section 1 introduces James Brown Scott’s 1917 speech on the Platt Amendment. Taking the speech as a point of departure, it traces the connection between the rise of international law and US–Cuba relations at the turn of the century. Section 2 describes the rise of humanitarianism in the United States in the late nineteenth century and its religious inspiration. This development would provide the ideological foundations for the narrative of the selfless empire that supported the 1898 US intervention in Cuba. Section 3 begins with a textual analysis of Scott’s speech and connects it with the narrative of 1898. It continues by illustrating the ambivalent relationship of the narrative with concrete US policies toward Cuba and Latin America in the early twentieth century.