ABSTRACT
The immediate post-independence period in South and Central America was marked by numerous frontier disputes. To reconcile these disputes, the new states agreed to use the Roman Law principle of uti possidetis with the critical date of 1810. During the nineteenth century, the tension among Latin American states continued. The lack of a mechanism to ensure peaceful settlement of regional disputes was demonstrated by the protracted and costly Paraguayan War (1864-70), involving Bolivia’s claim to the Chaco Boreal on the west bank of the Paraguay River, and the War of the Pacific (1879-83), in which Bolivia lost control over its outlet to the Pacific and became a land-locked state. The Good Neighbor Policy enunciated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 signaled a major shift in United States (US) behavior toward Latin America, bolstering hopes for the establishment of a genuine regional security system rooted in the principles of the equality of states and peaceful procedures for the settlement of disputes.
