Inter-American Treaty of Mutual Assistance

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The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance ( Spanish Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca , TIAR ; French Traité interaméricain d'assistance réciproque ; English Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance ) is an inter -American mutual assistance pact. It is also known as the Rio Pact or the Rio Pact . According to this treaty, a common case of defense occurs in the event of external threats to the American member states.

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The treaty provides for both the settlement of differences of opinion between states in the western hemisphere and the joint defense of the area between the Bering Sea and the South Pole against external attacks. It can be understood as the initially successful formalization of the hemispheric defense policy (see Monroe Doctrine ) of the United States during the Second World War.

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The Rio Pact stipulated that an attack on an American state would be considered an attack on all American states (Art. 1, Section 3); in such a case or if there is a risk of attack, the foreign ministers of all signatory states should be informed (Art. 6); the treaty also set out a number of possible sanctions that the joint advisory body could consider.

Come into effect

The treaty was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 at the Inter-American Defense Conference and ratified by most member states in 1948. With the deposit of the instrument of ratification by Costa Rica on December 3, 1948, the treaty came into force; because Art. 22 stipulated that ratification by two thirds of the signatory states was necessary for this. In 1948 the Organization of American States (OAS) was also created to comply with the Rio Pact and serve as a community security system. With the American Treaty on Peaceful Dispute Settlement , signed a year later, a number of American states also undertook to resolve conflicts among themselves exclusively by peaceful means.

Member States

Map of the current Member States (dark blue) and former Member States (light blue)
17 current member states with year of accession


6 former members

effect

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The treaty played a bigger role in the 1950s and 1960s. From its inception until before the Falklands War, the treaty was applied 21 times:

  • ten times because of border disputes between member states or because of violations of sovereignty,
  • seven times in the fight against communism
  • and four times for attempting to overthrow one state against another. In the wake of the crisis in relations between the United States and Latin American countries, it then became less important.

In the Falklands War of 1982, the United States found itself in a bind, insofar as it was bound by both the TIAR and the Special Relationship with Great Britain. The NATO treaties were not relevant because they exclude all territories south of the Tropic of Capricorn in Art. The USA sided with the UK after failed mediation attempts . However, none of the Latin American TIAR contracting states intervened on the Argentine side in the war.

The Bahamas became the last signatory state to join in 1982. Peru announced its exit on January 22, 1990, but withdrew it on December 16, 1991 before the end of a two-year period. As a consequence of the experiences during the Falklands crisis and in anticipation of the Iraq war , Mexico withdrew from the treaty in 2002 with effect from 2004.

On June 5, 2012, the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for America - Bolivia , Ecuador , Nicaragua and Venezuela - also initiated the two-year exit under Article 25 of the treaty. On February 4, 2014, President Rafael Correa signed Decree No. 217, withdrawing Ecuador from the TIAR.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Larman C. Wilson: The Monroe Doctrine, Cold War Anachronism: Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In: The Journal of Politics, February 28, 1966, pp. 322–346, here p. 328.
  2. ↑ Rafael Francisco Alberto Zariquiey Núñez: Los gastos en defensa en los países sudamericanos y su influenxia en el ambiente de seguridad y defensa. ( Memento of July 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (pdf; Spanish) of May 8, 2006, p. 35; Retrieved April 19, 2009.
  3. ^ Ministry of People's Power for Foreign Affairs (Venezuela): ALBA Countries to Withdraw From Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. ( Memento of September 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) of June 5, 2012 (English), accessed on April 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ Decreto Ejecutivo ( Memento of March 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) of February 4, 2014 (Spanish), accessed on April 19, 2019

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