III. The Rôle of Latin America in Relation to Current Trends in International Organization

Latin America's part and problems in the international order that is now emerging have not taken final shape at the present writing (March, 1945), and may not do so for some time after the United Nations Conference scheduled to open at San Francisco on April 25. Nevertheless, most of the main outlines seem to have been sketched in by recent developments, notably by the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals of October, 1944, and two subsequent conferences: the Great-Power conference held at Yalta in February of this year, and the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace (commonly called the Chapultepec Conference) held at Mexico City in February and March.IThe Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, although neither complete nor definitive, did give an official and rather detailed picture of the kind of general international organization the Great Powers were planning to establish. From the point of view of this paper, the two principal features of the plan were (1) that it established a pattern of Great Power ascendancy in the general organization, particularly with reference to its central organ, the Security Council, and (2) that it encouraged the development of regional arrangements and agencies, such as the inter-American system, within the framework of the general organization (Proposals, Chap. VIII, Sec. C). The former feature was reinforced by the Yalta Conference, the latter by the Chapultepec Conference, which was devoted primarily to the task of strengthening the inter-American system and adapting it to the projected general organization outlined by the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals.