Pan-American Imaginings of Latin America: The Visit of Elihu Root to Latin America and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern International Law and Organization in the Americas (1906-1912)

JUAN PABLO SCARFI

Bristol

Conferencia; 46 Conference, Society of Latin American Studies; 2010

Society of Latin American Studies & University of Bristol

In 1906 for the first time a US Secretary of State made an official visit to Latin America in the context of the Third Pan American Conference held in Rio de Janeiro. Elihu Root, who is widely considered as one of the founders of Pan-Americanism, made a wide tour across Latin America, visiting Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Perú, Colombia, México and Panamá. In this article, I will argue that this was not a traditional diplomatic visit, for it reshaped US understanding and relation with Latin America, particularly with the ABC countries. Further, the interaction of Root with the elites of the region served to imagine and legitimate a common continental discourse about peace, cooperation and international law. Pan Americanism, that is, the idea initially promoted by James G. Blaine in 1881, according to which the countries of the Western Hemisphere shared common institutions, cultural traditions and continental ideas, was thus re-invented. Few years later, in 1912 Root entrusted Robert Bacon to visit again Latin America, under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, repeating his itinerary. Providing a new insight into the visits of Root and Bacon to Latin America, I will argue that both visits set the founding basis, upon which the US disseminated and legitimated among Latin American elites a common and monist discourse of peace and order in Latin America. Visiting different circuits and dialoguing with a variety of audiences served Root and Bacon to institutionalize this hemispheric discourse and thus create shortly after in 1915 the American Institute of International Law, an organism that unified all the existing national societies of international law across the continent. The configuration of these Pan American imaginings -and organizations- of international law and order were instrumental to legitimate US hegemony in Latin America.