Montevideo Convention

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. 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 the domestic affairs of Latin America. The convention was signed by 19 states. The acceptance of Brazil, Peru and the United States as signatories was subject to minor reservations. The convention became operative on December 26, 1934. It was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on January 8, 1936. The agreement established the standard definition of a sovereign state under international law. The conference is notable in U.S. history, since one of the U.S. representatives was Sophonisba Breckinridge, the first woman to be a representative for the U.S. at an international conference.