The Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace informally known as the Chapultepec Conference, was held in

Chapultepec Castle Chapultepec Castle ( es, Castillo de Chapultepec) is located on top of Chapultepec Hill in Mexico City's Chapultepec park. The name ''Chapultepec'' is the Nahuatl word ''chapoltepēc'' which means "on the hill of the grasshopper". The castle has s ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

on February 21 to March 8, 1945, between the United States and 19

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...

countries. Argentina was not invited because it had not declared war on the Axis Powers in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The original goals were to discuss the status of Argentina, the role of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

and postwar American economic aid. The second goal was postponed. There was agreement that Argentina could rejoin the inter-American community if it were to declare war on

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. The Latin American countries feared that American commitment to the United Nations would in some ways be in conflict with the Pan-American ideals. Therefore, the conference adopted a formal resolution called the Act of Chapultepec which proclaimed the principle of collective self-defense through regional pacts. This policy was adopted by the United Nations and

Article 51 of the UN charter Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council's powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military an ...

, which authorized regional security arrangements. The provisions also provided the basis for the

Rio Treaty The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (commonly known as the Rio Treaty, the Rio Pact, the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or by the Spanish-language acronym TIAR from ''Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca'') is an agreem ...

of 1947, which was an inter-American collective security

pact A pact, from Latin ''pactum'' ("something agreed upon"), is a formal agreement between two or more parties. In international relations, pacts are usually between two or more sovereign states. In domestic politics, pacts are usually between two or ...

See also

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Further reading