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wide sense of the term. 4 They include Amancio Alcorta y Palacio
(Argentina, 1842-1902); Alejandro Álvarez (Chile, 1868-1960); José
Joaquín Caicedo Castilla (Colombia, 1903-1979); Francisco Cuevas
Cancino (Mexico, 1921-present); Charles G. Fenwick (U.S.A., 1880-
1973); Homero Henríquez (Dominican Republic, flourished 1900s-
1940s); Lucio M. Moreno Quintana (Argentina, 1898-unknown); Carlos
Augusto Sánchez i Sánchez (Dominican Republic, 1895-1974); Antonio
Gómez Robledo (Mexico, 1908-unknown, flourished 1940s-1990s);
César Sepúlveda (Mexico, 1916-1994); Francisco José Urrutia (Colombia,
1870-1950); José María Velasco Ibarra (Ecuador, 1893-1979); Jesús
María Yepes (Colombia, 1891-1962); and, to a lesser degree, Juan
Carlos Puig (Argentina, 1928-1989).
• Second, there are several scholars who believe that the American
republics have developed original legal principles but have not created a
distinct regional system of international law. These scholars include
Juan Bautista Alberdi (Argentina, 1810-1864); Carlos Saavedra Lamas
(Argentina, 1880-1959); Alberto Ulloa y Sotomayor (Peru, 1892-1975);
H.B. Jacobini (U.S.A., 1922-present); and, again, Juan Carlos Puig. 5
• Third, there are those authors who believe that the American republics
have not developed a distinct regional legal system and do not even
have a right to do so. They include Carlos Calvo (Argentina, 1824-
1906); Manoel Alvarado de Souza Sá Vianna (Brazil, 1860-1923); Daniel
Antokoletz (Argentina, 1881-unknown); and Julio Galindo Alarcón (Peru,
1943-present). 6
While it is difficult to determine with certainty who first proposed the
creation of a regional legal system in the Western Hemisphere, the idea can be
traced back to the era of Simón Bolívar. In his 1824 diplomatic note inviting all the
independent countries of the New World to meet in Panama City for the first
Congress of American Republics, Bolívar suggested that one of the main goals of
this gathering should be the establishment of legal principles to regulate relations
among them. Pursuant to this suggestion, the 1826 Congress of Panama discussed
developing a code of regional international law. 7 Although the Treaty of Union
produced by the Panama Congress did not come into effect for lack of sufficient
ratifications, the interest in a regional legal system remained present in the writings
of many legal scholars of the Western Hemisphere.
Less than two decades later, the Argentine scholar Juan Bautista Alberdi
published an article (1920a, 6:24) calling for a “General American Congress,”
which would codify a regional legal system that he termed “American
International Law.” While Alberdi favors the recognition of regional legal
systems, affirming that positive international law is as varied as the number of
states, his position on the existence of American International Law is ambiguous.
In his review of Carlos Calvo’s book El derecho internacional teórico y práctico,
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