Montevideo Convention

Montevideo Convention

Convention on the Rights and Duties of States
Ratifications and signatories of the treaty   Parties   Signatories   Other Organization of American States members
Signed	December 26, 1933
Location	Montevideo, Uruguay
Effective	December 26, 1934
Signatories	20
Parties	16 (as of May 2015)
Depositary	Pan American Union
Languages	English, French, Spanish and Portuguese
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The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States is a treaty signed at Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 26, 1933, during the Seventh International Conference of American States. The Convention codifies the declarative theory of statehood as accepted as part of customary international law. At the conference, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared the Good Neighbor Policy, 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 Brazil, Peru and the United States.

The convention became operative on December 26, 1934. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on January 8, 1936.

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 declarative theory of statehood.

A basic point should be emphasized: Article 1 is qualified by Article 11 because it prohibits using military force to gain recognition of sovereignty. Furthermore, Article 11 reflects the contemporary Stimson Doctrine, and is now a fundamental part of international law through article 2 paragraph 4 of the Charter of the United Nations.