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The Dominican Crisis: An Inter-American Dilemma
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
Extract
From whatever standpoint it may be viewed, the decision of President Johnson to order the Marines into the Dominican Republic on April 28, 1965, was bound to provide a focus for controversy. However, the essentially political nature of that act and its ostensible and concealed motivations have tended to shroud the impact of the Dominican crisis upon the legal mechanisms of the Inter-American System, outlined in the basic documents and developed in the practice of the Organization of American States. This is not to suggest that the problems of Latin America in general and of the Dominion Republic in particular are reducible to a statement of principles of international law. Indeed, it is the present writer’s contention that the Latin American members of the Organization have demonstrated that they are far too servile towards what they deem to be the basic norms of American international law, and that this attitude coupled with the equivocal political manœuvres of the United States has produced a form of institutional schizophrenia which deflects attention from the basic problems of contemporary Latin America and the pressing need for their solution. The main purposes of this comment are to examine the Dominican crisis in the context of fundamental stresses in Latin American society, to evaluate the roles of the United States and the O.A.S. in terms of their reactions to this case, and to make some general comments on how the Inter-American System may be rendered more meaningful in dealing with the political, economic, and social priorities of the region.
- Type
- Notes and Comments
- Information
- Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 4 , 1966 , pp. 178 - 193
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Canadian Council on International Law / Conseil Canadien de Droit International, representing the Board of Editors, Canadian Yearbook of International Law / Comité de Rédaction, Annuaire Canadien de Droit International 1966
References
1 See the recent studies by Dreier, John C., The Organization of American States and the Hemisphere Crisis (New York Council on Foreign Relations, 1962) Google Scholar; Thomas, A.V.W. and Thomas, A.J., The Organization of American States (Dallas, 1963).Google Scholar
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4 See the speech made by Senator Fulbright, Congressional Record-Senate, Sept. 15, 1965, at 23002. The Senator’s speech is a masterful expose of the weaknesses of United States Latin American policy.
5 Draper, supra note 4, at 9–15.
6 The Guatemala Case, 1954, involved increasing communist influence upon an existing government. See Claude, Inis L., “The O.A.S., the U.N. and the United States,” International Conciliation, March 1964, at 21–34.Google Scholar The Cuban problem involved the reactions to an existing communist regime: see MacDonald, R.St.J., “The Organization of American States in Action,” (1963–64) 15 U. of Toronto L.J. 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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10 Smith, supra note 8, at 646.
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13 MacDonald, supra note 6, at 389–90, 411–14.
14 52 Dept. State Bull. 739 (1965).
15 Ibid., 741.
16 Ibid., 862–63.
17 U.N. Monthly Chronicle, June 1965, at 10.
18 52 Dept. State Bull. 912–13 (1965).
19 Ibid., 913.
20 Mentioned in the speech of United States Representative Adlai E. Stevenson to the Security Council, May 23, 1965: see ibid., 977–78.
21 Ibid., 911–12.
22 For the texts of these Declarations, see 48 Am. J. Int’l L., Supp., 134–25 (1954) ; 56 Am. J. Int’l L., 604–05 (1962).
23 Claude, supra note 6, at 31–34.
24 For details of these U.N. Forces, see Bowett, D.W., United Nations Forces 90–149, 552–60 (New York, 1964).Google Scholar
25 Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter), Advisory Opinion of July 20, 1962 [1962] I.C.J. Rep. 151.
26 Wells, supra note 3, at 20; See New York Times, Sept. 2, 1965, at 18, for the text of the Act of Reconciliation.
27 Ibid., Feb. 10, 1966, at 1.
28 See Thomas and Thomas, supra note I, at 157–68 for an able examination of the non-intervention principle.
29 Dreier, supra note ι, at 74–79.
30 Ibid., 82–86. See also ibid., 113–37 for an excellent analysis of priorities in Latin America and how the O.A.S. should meet them.
31 Smith, supra note 8, at 643–45.
32 For a short resumé of the Conference, see External Affairs, Jan. 1966, at 28–30.