Havana Conference (1928)

Formally known as the Sixth International Conference of American States, this meeting was held in Havana, Cuba, in January and February 1928. It marked a crucial turning point in inter-American relations, the high point of the dominance of the Pan-American Union by the United States, and the intransigence of U.S. interventionist policy in Latin America. The near absolute control of the conference agenda by the United States did not still expressions of frustration and resentment of U.S. policy by the other delegations. While an attempt to wrest control of the Pan-American Union from the United States proved unsuccessful, the conference was singularly productive. Conventions and resolutions were adopted on asylum, consular agents, diplomatic officials, status of aliens, maritime neutrality, duties and rights of states in the event of civil strife, treaties, commercial aviation, literary and artistic copyrights, and private international law.

Public condemnation of the perceived U.S. bullying at the conference and its policy of inter-ventionism eventually had an effect. With a change in administration and the articulation of the Good Neighbor Policy by Franklin Roosevelt, the Seventh International Conference of American States in Montevideo (1933) was able to declare interventionism illegal in the Western Hemisphere. This new era of understanding was important in setting the stage for greater cooperation during and after World War II.

See alsoInter-American System .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, Division of International Law, International Conferences of American States, vol. 1 (1934).

David Sheinin, Argentina and the United States at the Sixth Pan American Conference (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Marichal, Carlos. México y las conferencias panamericanas, 1889–1938: Antecedentes de la globalización. México: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2002.

Pegueros, Rosemarie. "Flowers without Rain: International Diplomacy and Equality for Women in the Americas at the Sixth Inter-American Conference (January 16-February 20, 1928)." Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1998.

Solveira, Beatriz Rosario. La Argentina y la Quinta Conferencia Panamericana. Córdoba: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1993.

                                James Patrick Kiernan