Organization of American States

Organization of American States. The Organization of American States (OAS) emerged from the Ninth International Conference of American States held in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1948. As a regional entry sanctioned by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, the OAS provided the political means for implementing the Rio Pact of 1947, a collective security alliance among Western Hemisphere nations.

The OAS charter set forth the following aims: advancing peace and security; resolving disputes among members by amicable means; enforcing collective security provisions against aggressors; and promoting economic, social, and cultural development. The governing principles also affirmed respect for international law, national sovereignty and independence, and the goal of unity among American states through the exercise of representative government.

From the Latin American viewpoint, Article 15 of the Charter embodied a most important provision: a statement of the nonintervention principle affirming that “No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State.” This prohibition applied to the use of “armed force” and also to “any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements.”

Divergent expectations impeded OAS activities from the beginning. For the United States, the organization served primarily anticommunist purposes—that is, to orchestrate political and military responses in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. For Latin Americans, in contrast, the OAS represented a shield against U.S. intervention and a structure for administering anticipated programs of economic aid and assistance. These divergent understandings caused special controversy during the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and other Cold War Era interventions.
See also Anticommunism; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Pan American Union.

Bibliography

O. Carlos Stoetzer , The Organization of American States, 2d ed., 1993.
David Sheinin , The Organization of American States, 1995.

Mark T. Gilderhus