The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States is a treaty signed at Montevideo,

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, on December 26, 1933, during the Seventh International Conference of American States. The Convention codifies the

declarative theory of statehood A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined terr ...

as accepted as part of customary

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. At the conference,

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President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

and Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared the ''

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'', which opposed U.S. armed intervention in inter-American affairs. The convention was signed by 19 states. The acceptance of three of the signatories was subject to minor reservations. Those states were

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and the

. The convention became operative on December 26, 1934. It was registered in ''League of Nations Treaty Series'' on January 8, 1936. The conference is notable in U.S. history, since one of the U.S. representatives was Dr. Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, the first U.S. female representative at an international conference.''From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776''
by George C. Herring,

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, 2008, p. 499. Online at

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. Retrieved 2011-09-20.

Background

In most cases, the only avenue open to self-determination for colonial or national ethnic minority populations was to achieve international legal personality as a nation-state. The majority of delegations at the International Conference of American States represented independent states that had emerged from former colonies. In most cases, their own existence and independence had been disputed or opposed by one or more of the European colonial empires. They agreed among themselves to criteria that made it easier for other dependent states with limited sovereignty to gain international recognition.

Contents of the convention

The convention sets out the definition, rights and duties of statehood. Most well-known is Article 1, which sets out the four criteria for statehood that have been recognized by international organizations as an accurate statement of customary international law: Furthermore, the first sentence of Article 3 explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states." This is known as the

. It stands in conflict with the alternative constitutive theory of statehood: a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. It should not be confused with the Estrada doctrine. "Independence" and "sovereignty" are not mentioned in article 1. An important part of the convention was a prohibition of using military force to gain sovereignty. According to Article 11 of the Convention, Furthermore, Article 11 reflects the contemporary

Stimson Doctrine The Stimson Doctrine is the policy of nonrecognition of states created as a result of a war of aggression. The policy was implemented by the United States government, enunciated in a note of January 7, 1932, to the Empire of Japan and the Repub ...

, and is now a fundamental part of international law through article 2 paragraph 4 of the

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Parties

The 17 states that have ratified this convention are limited to the

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. ;Notes A further three states signed the Convention on 26 December 1933, but have not ratified it. The only state to attend the Seventh International Conference of American States, where the convention was agreed upon, which did not sign it was Bolivia. Costa Rica, which did not attend the conference, later signed the convention.

Customary international law

As a restatement of customary international law, the Montevideo Convention merely codified existing legal norms and its principles and therefore does not apply merely to the signatories, but to all subjects of international law as a whole. The

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, in the principal statement of its

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, follows the Montevideo Convention in its definition of a state: by having a territory, a population, and a political authority. The committee also found that the existence of states was a question of fact, while the recognition by other states was purely declaratory and not a determinative factor of statehood. Switzerland, although not a member of the European Union, adheres to the same principle, stating that "neither a political unit needs to be recognized to become a state, nor does a state have the obligation to recognize another one. At the same time, neither recognition is enough to create a state, nor does its absence abolish it."Switzerland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DFA, Directorate of International Law: "Recognition of States and Governments," 2005.

References

External links

Original text at UN Treaties Series
Registration Number: 3802

The Montevideo Convention and Taiwan/ROC {{Franklin D. Roosevelt, state=collapsed History of Montevideo 1933 in the United States Interwar-period treaties Treaties concluded in 1933 Treaties entered into force in 1934 Treaties of Argentina Treaties of Vargas-era Brazil Treaties of Chile Treaties of Colombia Treaties of Cuba Treaties of the Dominican Republic Treaties of Ecuador Treaties of El Salvador Treaties of Guatemala Treaties of Haiti Treaties of Honduras Treaties of Mexico Treaties of Nicaragua Treaties of Panama Treaties of Paraguay Treaties of Peru Treaties of the United States Treaties of Uruguay Treaties of Venezuela