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Diálogos militares by Diego García de Palacio: The first American work on the law of nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Extract

Over the years the Americas have made significant contributions to the development of international humanitarian law. These include three nineteenth-century texts which constitute the earliest modern foundations of the law of armed conflict. The first is a treaty, signed on 26 November 1820 by the liberator Simón Bolívar and the peacemaker Pablo Morillo, which applied the rules of international conflict to a civil war. The second is a Spanish-American work entitled Principios de Derecho de Genres (Principles of the Law of Nations), which was published in 1832 by Andrés Bello. This work dealt systematically with the various aspects and consequences of war. The third is a legal instrument, signed on 24 April 1863 by United States President Abraham Lincoln, which codified the first body of law on internal conflict under the heading “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field” (General Orders No. 100). This instrument, known as the Lieber Code, was adopted as the new code of conduct for the armies of the Union during the American Civil War.

Type
500th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Americas
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1992

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References

1 This work was published in Mexico by Pedro de Ocharte in 1583. A facsimile edition was issued in 1944 by Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, Colección de Incunables Americanos, Vol. VII, Madrid.Google Scholar

2 Arias, Luis García, “La primera obra publicada en América sobre la guerre y su derecho”, in Estudios de Historia y Doctrina del Derecho International, Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Madrid, 1964, pp. 135 and 136.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., pp. 138 to 151.

4 Diálogos Militares, p. 11.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 13.

6 Ibid., p. 14.

7 Ibid., p. 16.

8 Ibid., p. 16.

9 Ibid., p. 19.

10 Jiménez, Andrés Upegui, La Conquista de América y el Derecho de la Guerra: pensamiento jurídico de Francisco de Vitoria, University of the Andes, Faculty of Law, Bogotá, pp. 96 and 97.Google Scholar

11 Diálogos Militares, op. cit., p. 17.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 19.

13 Jiménez, Upegui, op. cit., p. 98.Google Scholar

14 Diálogos Militares, op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 20.