The Tracing of a Trajectory

Abstract

In the period leading up to the formation of the OAS in 1948, the Pan-American Union was in many respects a forum which served a dual purpose. For the Latin Americans, it offered an opportunity to engage and influence to some extent U.S. hemispheric perceptions, while at the same time promoting international cooperation in a wide range of fields. For the United States, it offered a forum for keeping a vigilant eye on the presence and influence of non-hemispheric powers in the region while asserting the U.S. efforts for hemispheric development through cooperation. The establishment of the OAS, which institutionalized and gave juridical validity to the achievements of the process of Pan-Americanism, was a climax and a turning point in many ways. It was a high point in that it produced institutional structures, which transformed the character and political machinery of Pan Americanism, thus introducing an inter-American system with certain general features of the recently established United Nations System, but with particular and distinctive regional characteristics. The inter-American system was therefore clothed with more structured manageability and juridical character under a charter.