ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the many international institutions outside of the Western Hemisphere that are important to the international relations of Latin America and the Caribbean. Two great currents of international politics—arbitration and disarmament—played conspicuous roles in the international system at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most Latin American states opposed arms control through global arrangements, emphasizing that the region was appreciably different from the rest of the world. Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter recognized regional arrangements as being compatible with global organization and especially appropriate to the settlement of regional disputes. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade continued as the only basis for global negotiations to promote the development of an open world trade system; it created its own secretariat and grievance procedures. Virtually all of the American states were basing their economic recovery or development on strategies of export-led growth and did not intend that regional groupings forego extraregional trade links.
