Countering war or embracing peace? Dialogues between regionalism and multilateralism in Latin America (1945-1954)

Abstract

Still an open debate, definitions about the beginning of the Cold War were even more ambiguous to actors at the time concerned with development and exit strategies for the Second World War. That was precisely the scenario to several Latin American leaders who, far from the Iron Curtain, were debating the rise of the UN system and of parliamentary diplomacy. Focusing on a multilateral strategy of action for the post-war international order, our work tries to put together the Pan-Latin, Pan-American and UN policies of Latin Americans since the Chapultepec Conference of February 1945 until the 1954 Conferences of Caracas, which fashioned the Organization of American States’ Cold War status, and of Madrid, which failed to consolidate the Latin Union.

Keywords

• international history
• latin america
• transatlantic relations
• latin union
• organization of american states
• united nations
• cold war