Reception and Disciplinary Formation of International Law in Latin America

Abstract

The reception and disciplinary formation of modern international law in Latin America was marked by the rise of the US as an informal empire in the Americas in the late nineteenth century and the emergence of a hemispheric US-led approach to American international law. This chapter examines the origins and trajectory of the American Institute of International Law (AIIL), an organisation based in Washington and funded by the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace (CEIP), which performed a central role in the construction of a continental approach to American international law in the early twentieth century. It also explores the emergence of an alternative regional Latin American approach to international law. This latter approach emerged as a defensive reaction to the rise of a US-led approach to American international law as promoted by the AIIL.