Tobar Doctrine
Tobar Doctrine
In a 15 March 1907 letter to the Bolivian consul in Brussels, Carlos R. Tobar, a former Ecuadorian foreign minister, affirmed that "The American republics … ought to intervene indirectly in the internal dissensions of the republics of the continent. Such intervention might consist, at the least, in the denial of recognition to de factor governments springing from revolution against the constitutional order." In December 1907 representatives of the Central American nations, meeting in Washington, D.C., officially incorporated Tobar's de jure recognition policy into the 1907 Washington Treaties. At the request of Costa Rica more stringent de jure recognition provisions were written into the 1923 Washington Treaties. A succession of isthmian recognition crises, however, convinced many Central Americans that strict adherence to the Tobar Doctrine was not in their best interests. In 1932 Costa Rica and El Salvador, dissatisfied with the existing recognition policy, denounced the 1923 Washington Treaties. Efforts to resurrent the Tobar Doctrine at the 1934 Central American Conference were unsuccessful.
See alsoCentral America; Washington Treaties of 1907 and 1923.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leónidas García, "La doctrina Tobar," in Revista de la Sociedad "Jurídico-Literaria" (Quito) 1 (January-February 1913): 25-71.
Charles L. Stansifer, "Application of the Tobar Doctrine to Central America," in Americas 23, no. 3 (1967): 251-272.
Richard V. Salisbury, "Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy: Costa Rica's Stand on Recognition, 1923–1934," in Hispanic American Historical Review 54, no. 3 (1974):453-478.
Additional Bibliography
Buchenau, Jürgen. In the Shadow of the Giant: The Making of Mexico's Central America Policy, 1876–1930. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996.
Schoonover, Thomas David. The United States in Central America, 1860–1911: Episodes of Social Imperialism and Imperial Rivalry in the World System. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
Richard V. Salisbury