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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2017
The war and the present preoccupation with post-war plans have brought about a general awareness of the fact that the Americas have been a testing ground for the orderly organization of relations among sovereign states, especially in the development of cooperative principles and techniques. The construction of a political organization within which these principles and techniques could be consolidated has not, however, characterized the American experience. The Pan American Union, for example, is expressly denied the right to consider political or controversial questions, and proposals for the creation of a “league” or “association” of American states has met with courteous but definite coolness.
1 The statutes of the Pan American Union provide that “neither the Governing Board nor the Pan American Union shall exercise functions of a political character.” Paragraph 3 of the resolution of the Sixth International Conference of American States, International Conferences of American States, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 397.
2 See Resolution XIV on Association of American Nations, Eighth International Conference of American States, ibid., First Supp., p. 245.
3 Resolutions III and V of the First Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics. Ibid., First Supp., pp. 322 and 326.
4 Resolutions XVII and XXXIX of the Second Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics. Pan American Union, Congress and Conference Series, No. 36, pp. 44 and 59.
5 Resolution VIII on Coördination of Police and Judicial Measures for the Maintenance of Neutrality. Carnegie Endowment, op, cit., First Supp., p. 331.
6 Resolution XI, ibid., p. 333.
7 Resolutions II, III, V, VI and VII, ibid., pp. 351, 353, 354.
8 The original appointments, in the order of countries named, were: Miguel Angel Chiappe, Mario de Pimentel Brandao, Joaquín Fernández y Fernández, Carl B. Spaeth, Carlos Dario Ojeda, Alberto Guani, Eduardo Arroyo Lameda. The following changes have since taken place: Guillermo de Achával, former Argentine Minister to Poland, replaced Miguel Angel Chiappe with the Committee as his exclusive assignment; General Pedro Goes Monteiro, ex-Brazilian Chief of Staff, replaced Mario de Pimentel Brandao upon the latter’s designation as Ambassador to Spain; Alfredo Rodríguez MacIver, Chilean Ambassador to Uruguay, replaced Fernández y Fernández upon the latter’s appointment as Chilean Foreign Minister; Mariano Armendáriz del Castillo, Mexican Ambassador to Uruguay, was designated to the Committee when Carlos Darfo Ojeda was appointed Mexican Ambassador in Buenos Aires.
9 Pursuant to Art. 23 of its Internal Regulations, approved on April 20, 1942, the Committee relies for this purpose on the population figures used by the Union in determining the quotas of its members.
The Governing Board understood that the salary and transportation expenses of the members would be paid by their own governments, but, upon inquiry from the Committee, it later held that this does not apply to travel and subsistence expenses of members and officers of the Committee while traveling on official business. Such expenses are borne by the Committee.
10 All but three of the governments have appointed these liaison officials. In its Resolution No. I, approved April 24, 1942, the Committee set forth the essential functions which in its opinion should be performed by these officers, as follows:
(a)Consultation with all the interested government agencies with respect to the steps to be taken to effectuate each recommendation from the Committee for Political Defense and the maintenance of regular and continuous contact with all such agencies as their work relates to that of the Committee;
(b)Providing the Committee with information concerning the legislative and administrative measures undertaken by the government to prevent, control and punish subversive activities and with respect to action taken pursuant to the Committee’s recommendations;
(c)Submission to the Committee of any proposals or projects which might be used as a basis for further study or recommendations to the other American governments.
11 The Inter-American Conference of Police and Judicial Authorities, held at Buenos Aires in May and June 1942, also recognized the need for these national committees in its Resolution No. XIV.
12 The regional meeting on Entry and Exit of Persons and Clandestine Crossing of Frontiers was held in September, 1942, at Rivera, on the frontier between Uruguay and Brazil. The meeting was attended by two members of the Committee and by operating officials of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay. Its object was to determine the emergency measures necessary to stop the clandestine crossing of Axis agents from Brazil into neighboring republics occasioned by the former’s declaration of war on the Axis on August 23, 1942.
13 Paragraph one of the preamble to the resolution recites:
Acts of aggression of the nature contemplated in Resolution XV adopted by the Second Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics at Habana have now taken place against the integrity and inviolability of the territory of an American Republic.
14 Each of the control measures recommended in the memorandum attached to the resolution contemplated both general safeguards and special discriminatory measures against the Tripartite Pact, its nationals or organizations controlled by it. (Italics supplied.)
15 See the discussion of the so-called “legislative program,” pp. 232–234, infra.
16 Annual Report of the committee 1942–1943, English edition, p. 12.
17 Ibid., p. 268.
18 Their prompt acceptances in the face of such established doctrines regarding recognition as have developed in the American hemisphere (e.g., the Estrada doctrine of Mexico), dramatically illustrates that the safeguarding of hemispheric security and solidarity are paramount wartime policies of those republics.
19 It is interesting, and important, to note that the Committee’s resolutions did not imply that the governments should reach or announce a joint decision as a result of the consultations; the resolutions provided only for prior exchange of information and consultation, leaving the ultimate decision on recognition to the sovereign and individual determination of each government.
20 Paragraph A-2 of the memorandum attached to Resolution XVII recommended the establishment of procedures whereby nationals of the Tripartite Pact “deemed dangerous to the country of their residence shall during their stay therein remain in detention or be restricted in their freedom of movement.” When undertaking its preparation of the recommended procedures, the Committee was informed that many of the individuals considered dangerous by the American Republics had either requested repatriation or had been included on lists supplied by the Axis as a basis for exchange negotiations. In addition to the manpower consideration mentioned in the text, the Committee recognized that the individuals in question, being well informed about conditions in the country of residence, might be useful in the planning of future subversive activities as well as in actual operations.
21 Resolution XVII had recommended “strict surveillance over all persons seeking to enter or depart from the country, particularly those persons engaged in the interests of member states of the Tripartite Pact.” Impressed by the extent to which the Axis Powers employed their own nationals as couriers and liaison agents, the Committee recommended that entrance to the American Republics be denied absolutely to nationals of Germany, Italy, Japan, and the countries dominated by them.
22 The Committee’s study of the requirements of an adequate censorship system, its probable cost and personnel demands, induced the conclusion that it would be unnecessary from a security standpoint and impractical from a cost and administrative standpoint to recommend that each American Republic censor all international communications. It therefore recommended that international communications directed to the following states be censored: (a) any of the states members of the Tripartite Pact or states subservient to them; (b) any non-American state which is not at war against a member of the Tripartite Pact; and (c) any American state which has not broken diplomatic relations with the members of said Pact or which, having broken relations, has not either prohibited all communications with such states or established a strict censorship of communications with them.
23 Since the Pan American Union was directed to organize the Committee within a period of six weeks, it could not well follow an elective procedure which would give each government an opportunity to vote for the members. Experience had demonstrated that this was not feasible. For example, the original seven members of the Committee of Experts on the Codification of International Law were elected by the twenty-one governments by ballot over a three-year period on the basis of a list of 105 names proposed by the same governments.
24 Of the existing emergency advisory bodies, the Military Defense Board and the Economic and Financial Advisory Committee of Washington are composed, respectively, of two and one representatives from each country. The Inter-American Commission for Territorial Administration is made up of one representative named by each government party to the convention which created the Commission. The Juridical Committee of Rio de Janeiro has seven members appointed by the Pan American Union, and although its statutes do not give express form to the representative principle under discussion, the Committee has maintained that its members are representatives of the inter-American community and are not delegates of the countries of which they are nationals. Peace-time inter-American bqdies of limited membership are: (1) the Committee of Experts for the Codification of International Law, composed of nine members elected by the governments; (2) the three permanent codification committees of Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Havana on public and private international law and comparative legislation (at first there was no limitation on the number of members and they were all designated by the host country from among its own nationals; now the host country designates as many as it wishes, but six are appointed by that number of governments selected by the Union); (3) the Committee on Unification of Civil and Commercial Law of Lima, selected by lot from among names submitted by the governments.
25 The Director General of the Pan American Union has pointed out that: “It would seem to be of the utmost importance not to confuse the Meetings of Consultation with the International Conferences of American States. The former are for emergency purposes to consider problems of an urgent character; the latter are intended to establish broad principles of Pan American policy and to formulate programs of long-range activity.” Report on the Third Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics, Congress and Conference Series, Pan American Union, p. 21.
26 As the consultative procedure is designed to bring together the highest policy officials in international affairs of the twenty-one governments for the purpose of dealing expeditiously with critical emergency problems, it tends to operate within the maximum limits of executive power as exercised in emergency periods. The effect of this on the legal character of the resolutions and declarations of the consultative meetings, on the relationship of these conclusions to those of the general Pan American conferences, and on the jurisdiction of bodies created by such meetings, offers an interesting field of research.
27 Standard inter-American bodies are generally study entities with long-range tasks of preparing drafts on matters of major international convenience for consideration by conferences on which the twenty-one governments are represented by accredited national delegates.
28 Annual Report, p. 12.
29 The Committee has insisted that, regardless of any other official, diplomatic, or other responsibility the member may have, when acting within the Committee he is the representative of the twenty-one republics and not of any particular one. Four of the present members have no other official responsibilities than those of the Committee.
Likewise, to remove all possible source of misunderstanding, it has ordered that in all the documents of the Committee where the members are mentioned, the reference should be made to “member designated by (the country)” and not “the delegate or representative of (the country).”
30 This is one of the principal reasons why the Committee has placed special emphasis on the creation of adequate instrumentalities of communication and contact with each government. See page 223 supra for a discussion of these instrumentalities.
31 Only the twenty-one governments, acting through a conference or by means of a special agreement, have power to make such modifications. See Annual Report, p. 12.
32 These programs have been printed in full in the Appendix to the Annual Report, pp. 48–220 and are analyzed in Chapter IV thereof, “Resolutions of the Committee and Political Defense Measures Adopted by the American Republics,” pp. 24–42.
33 Resolution XV, “Prevention of Abuse of Nationality” (Annual Report, p. 133) and Resolution VIII, “Entry and Exit of Persons and Clandestine Crossing of National Frontiers” (Annual Report, p. 147).
34 Annual Report, p. 54.
35 The five points with which the registration proposal was concerned were: (1) Centralization of responsibility and integration of the registration process with supplementary investigations by police and other officials so as to insure correlation of data; (2) Revision of items on which data are requested at time of registration so as to provide more adequate basis for later investigation; (3) Obligatory appearance of Axis nationals every three months; (4) Adequate sanctions in lieu of the nominal penalties imposed for failure to register in many countries; (5) Issuance of a document, keyed to the registration process, as means of identification and to facilitate enforcement.
36 The manual was also printed in the Appendix to the Annual Report, pp. 221–256.
37 In some countries, the national commissions included cabinet officials; in most countries they were composed of the under-secretaries of state charged with the operating responsibilities of the several departments. In addition, each of the sessions was attended by experts in the subject scheduled for discussion.
38 The conclusions, which usually touched, in one way or another, upon all of the Committee’s recommendations, were incorporated in memoranda of agreement which were signed both by the national officials and by the Committee’s representatives at the closing session of the consultation.
39 Typical here were the conclusions: (1) that information possessed by immigration, police and military authorities with respect to Axis nationals be correlated, through a centralized agency, with the information secured through registration; (2) that the use of government interventors to control so-called social and benefit organizations of Axis nationals was ineffective to prevent the use of funds for subversive purposes, and that their complete dissolution with appropriate safeguards to prevent reappearance in different form was imperative; (3) that appropriate authorities undertake periodic investigations of the anti-sabotage methods being employed by private companies.
40 In a number of countries it was found that, although there was an adequate legislative basis for the cancellation of naturalization in accordance with the Committee’s recommendations on this subject, few if any proceedings had been instituted against persons of Axis origin who had been engaged in subversive activities. The conclusions therefore provided for a review of the cases of persons of Axis origin who had been naturalized during recent years (the period stipulated was usually the prior ten years) with the view to the cancellation of the naturalization of persons who had been engaged in subversive activities.
41 National Committees have been formed pursuant to the Committee’s recommendations in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. In other countries arrangements have been made for interdepartmental coöperation which look to substantially the same objectives as those contemplated by the Committee’s proposal on national committees.
42 The consultative visit to Argentina was of particular interest because it occurred during the extended period of her neutrality. The visit, during the administration of President Castillo, was characterized by a frank interchange of views with respect to the adequacy of Argentine security measures. The report of the Committee’s delegation was later transmitted to the Argentine Government for its consideration and comment. In a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Admiral Storni, addressed to the President of the Committee, which was released to the press by the Argentine Foreign Office, receipt of the report was acknowledged with the statement that its conclusions, “así como la eventual relación entre las Resolucions XVII y I,” were being considered by the interministerial committee on political defense. (See La Prensa, of Buenos Aires, July 9, 1943.)
43 These memoranda, “German Espionage Agents in Chile” and “Axis Espionage Activities in Argentina” were given widespread publicity by press and radio. They appear at pp. 86 and 107 of the Annual Report.
44 When publishing the memoranda the Committee stated:
In view of the seriousness of the charges which specifically describe activities by Axis agents which threaten the security of the hemisphere, it is highly desirable to give publicity to such information, as well as any other of the same character, since it is of paramount importance to the collective defense of America.
45 The United States delegation to the Buenos Aires Conference of 1936 proposed that a permanent consultative commission be established.
46 Executive and administrative international bodies in the technical, economic and humanitarian fields may also be able to utilize some of the Committee’s methods and procedures.