Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States

The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States is a treaty signed at Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 26, 1933, during the Seventh International Conference of American States. At the conference, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared the Good Neighbor Policy, which opposed U.S. armed intervention in inter-American affairs. The convention was signed by 19 states. The acceptance of three of the signatories was subject to minor reservations. Those states were Brazil, Peru and the United States.

Montevideo Convention

Convention on the Rights and Duties of States
Ratifications and signatories of the treaty   Parties   Signatories   Other Organization of American States members
Signed	December 26, 1933
Location	Montevideo, Uruguay
Effective	December 26, 1934
Signatories	20
Parties	17 (as of November 2021)
Depositary	Pan American Union
Languages	English, French, Spanish and Portuguese
Full text
Montevideo Convention at Wikisource

The convention became operative on December 26, 1934. It was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on January 8, 1936.

The conference is notable in U.S. history, since one of the U.S. representatives was Dr. Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, the first U.S. female representative at an international conference.

Background

In most cases, the only avenue open to self-determination for colonial or national ethnic minority populations was to achieve international legal personality as a nation-state. The majority of delegations at the International Conference of American States represented independent states that had emerged from former colonies. In most cases, their own existence and independence had been disputed or opposed by one or more of the European colonial empires. They agreed among themselves to criteria that made it easier for other dependent states with limited sovereignty to gain international recognition.^{[citation needed]}

Contents of the convention

Article 1 sets out the criteria for statehood:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

The first sentence of Article 3 states that "the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states." This is known as the declarative theory of statehood. It stands in contrast with the constitutive theory of statehood, by which a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. It should not be confused with the Estrada doctrine. "Independence" and "sovereignty" are not mentioned in article 1.

An important part of the convention was a prohibition of using military force to gain sovereignty. According to Article 11 of the convention,

The contracting states definitely establish the rule of their conduct the precise obligation not to recognize territorial acquisitions or advantages that have been obtained by force whether this consists in the employment of arms, in threatening diplomatic representations, or in any other effective coercive measure

Parties

Parties to the Montevideo Convention

  Parties

  Signatories

  Other Organization of American States members

The 17 states that have ratified this convention are limited to the Americas.

State	Signed	Deposited	Method
Brazil	Dec 26, 1933	Feb 23, 1937	Ratification
Chile	Dec 26, 1933	Mar 28, 1935	Ratification
Colombia	Dec 26, 1933	Jul 22, 1936	Ratification
Costa Rica		Sep 28, 1937	Accession
Cuba	Dec 26, 1933	Apr 28, 1936	Ratification
Dominican Republic	Dec 26, 1933	Dec 26, 1934	Ratification
Ecuador	Dec 26, 1933	Oct 3, 1936	Ratification
El Salvador	Dec 26, 1933	Jan 9, 1937	Ratification
Guatemala	Dec 26, 1933	Jun 12, 1935	Ratification
Haiti	Dec 26, 1933	Aug 13, 1941	Ratification
Honduras	Dec 26, 1933	Dec 1, 1937	Ratification
Mexico	Dec 26, 1933	Jan 27, 1936	Ratification
Nicaragua	Dec 26, 1933	Jan 8, 1937	Ratification
Panama	Dec 26, 1933	Nov 13, 1938	Ratification
Paraguay	Dec 26, 1933	Sep 7, 2018	Ratification
United States	Dec 26, 1933	Jul 13, 1934	Ratification
Venezuela	Dec 26, 1933	Feb 13, 1940	Ratification

Notes

1. The Organization of American States' database lists Costa Rica as signing the treaty, but the treaty does not include a signature by Costa Rica.

A further three states signed the convention on 26 December 1933, but have not ratified it.

•  Argentina
•  Peru
•  Uruguay

The only state to attend the Seventh International Conference of American States, where the convention was agreed upon, which did not sign it was Bolivia. Costa Rica, which did not attend the conference, later signed the convention.

Analysis

The Montevideo Convention codified several existing legal norms and principles, which apply to all subjects of international law.^{[better source needed]}

The Badinter Committee, which consisted of arbitrators from several European countries, considered a state as having a territory, population, and organised political authority and that the existence of states was a question of fact, while the recognition by other states was purely declaratory.

Switzerland adheres to the same principle, stating that "neither a political unit needs to be recognized to become a state, nor does a state have the obligation to recognize another one. At the same time, neither recognition is enough to create a state, nor does its absence abolish it."^[verify]

Actual state practices do not follow the Montevideo Convention exactly. While they play an important role, fulfilling its criteria do not automatically create a state because additional requirements must be met. The status of countries such as Kosovo and Somaliland largely depends on the recognition or non-recognition by other states.

See also

• Sovereignty
• Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration

References

1. "A-40: Convention on Rights and Duties of States". Organization of American States. Retrieved 2013-07-23.
2. Staff writer (2024). "Convention on Rights and Duties of States". UIA Global Civil Society Database. uia.org. Brussels, Belgium: Union of International Associations. Yearbook of International Organizations Online. Retrieved 12 January 2025.
3. Hersch Lauterpacht (2012). Recognition in International Law. Cambridge University Press. p. 419. ISBN 9781107609433.
4. "United States of America - Convention on Rights and Duties of States adopted by the Seventh International Conference of American States, Signed at Montevideo, December 26th, 1933 [1936] LNTSer 9; 165 LNTS 19". www.worldlii.org. pp. 20–43.
5. From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776, by George C. Herring, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 499. Online at Google Books. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
6. The Postcoloniality of International Law, Harvard International Law Journal, Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2005, Sundhya Pahuja, page 5 Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine
7. see for example State Failure, Sovereignty and Effectiveness, Legal Lessons from the Decolonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, Gerard Kreijen, Published by Martinus Nijhoff, 2004, ISBN 90-04-13965-6, page 110
8. "Convention on Rights and Duties of States adopted by the Seventh International Conference of American States". United Nations Treaty Series, Registration Number:3802. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
9. Encyclopedia of the Inter-American System. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1997-01-01. p. 287. ISBN 9780313286001. Retrieved 2013-07-23. Delegations from twenty states participated - from the United States and all those in Latin America except Costa Rica (provision was made for Costa Rica to later sign the conventions and treaties presented in the conference).
10. "Convention on the Rights and Duties of States". Yale. Retrieved 2013-07-23.
11. Harris, D.J. (ed) 2004 "Cases and Materials on International Law" 6th Ed. at p. 99. Sweet and Maxwell, London
12. Castellino, Joshua (2000). International Law and Self-Determination: The Interplay of the Politics of Territorial Possession With Formulations of Post-Colonial National Identity. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 77. ISBN 9041114092.
13. The Badinter Arbitration Committee (full title), named for its chair, ruled on the question of whether the Republics of Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, who had formally requested recognition by the members of the European Union and by the EU itself, had met conditions specified by the Council of Ministers of the European Community on December 16, 1991. "The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee: A Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples". Archived from the original on 2008-05-17. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
14. "Opinion No.1". International Law Reports. 92: 162–166. January 1993. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316152195.002. ISSN 0309-0671.
15. Switzerland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DFA, Directorate of International Law: "Recognition of States and Governments," 2005.
16. Akande, Dapo (7 August 2013). "The Importance of Legal Criteria for Statehood: A Response to Jure Vidmar". EJIL: Talk!.

Further reading

• Stuart, Graham. "The Results of the Good Neighbor Policy In Latin America' World Affairs 102#3 (September, 1939), pp. 166–170 online

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Montevideo Convention

• Original text at UN Treaties Series, Registration Number: 3802
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