Regional Imaginations of Peace: The Work of the Rio Committee and the Antecedents of the Pact of Bogota (1942–1947)

Abstract

This contribution re-describes the work of the Rio Committee in international law concerning dispute settlement in the Americas between 1942 and 1947. The work of the Rio Committee constitutes a crucial doctrinal and institutional experience that underpins the fundamental transformations experienced in Pan-Americanism considering the meeting of the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogota, Colombia, in 1948, which led to the creation of the Organization of the American States. As an antecedent to the adoption of the Pact of Bogota in 1948, the doctrinal work of the Rio Committee and its draft treaties allow for a substantive interrogation of the complex relationship between regionalism and universalism in international law. More specifically, this article assesses the ways in which mechanisms of peaceful settlement of disputes in the Americas were accommodated under the universal legal framework of the United Nations, opening space for regional cooperation to continue evolving in the continent.