The Mexican Revolution and the Reconfiguration of International Law in Latin America: The Rise of a Latin American Legal Anti-imperialist Tradition in the Face of the Pan-American Redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine, 1910?1938

JUAN PABLO SCARFI

Ciudad de Buenos Aires

Jornada; V Jornadas de Relaciones Internacionales: América Latina en la Disciplina Global de las Relaciones Internacionales; 2017

FLACSO

Although scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Latin American anti-imperialism, there was a distinct legalist tradition within this broader regional ideology, which has been largely overlooked. At the same time, in recent years a new revisionist literature has emerged exploring the complicity between the history of modern international law and imperialism, as well as Third World (and anti-imperialist) Approaches to International Law. This coincided with the rise of non-Western approaches to IR, as well as the fields of global history and comparative (non-Western) political theory. The purpose of this paper is to trace the rise and decline of this Latin American anti-imperialist legal tradition situating it in its global historical context and more importantly assessing its international and legal critique of the Monroe Doctrine. The paper argues that between 1910 and 1938, following the Mexican Revolution and a series of US interventions in Latin America, modern Latin American anti-imperialist ideas have had a notable influence among jurists and diplomats across the region, such as Carlos Pereyra (Mexico), Isidro Fabela (Mexico), and the young Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring (Cuba), among others. These figures were pioneering advocates of what could be termed as a ?Latin American legal anti-imperialist? tradition.