The Olney interpretation (also known as the Olney corollary or Olney declaration) was

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

Richard Olney Richard Olney (September 15, 1835 – April 8, 1917) was an American statesman. He served as United States Attorney General in the cabinet of Grover Cleveland and Secretary of State under Cleveland. As attorney general, Olney used injunct ...

's interpretation of the

Monroe Doctrine The Monroe Doctrine was a United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act ...

. During a border dispute between British Guiana and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, Olney claimed in 1895 that the Monroe Doctrine gave the United States authority to mediate border disputes in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...

. He extended the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine, which had previously stated merely that the Western Hemisphere was closed to additional European colonization: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition... The border dispute was settled by arbitration in 1897, and the Olney interpretation was defunct by 1933.

References

{{reflist

Sources

* George B. Young, "Intervention Under the Monroe Doctrine: The Olney Corollary," ''Political Science Quarterly,'' Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1942), pp. 247–28
in JSTOR
Legal history of the United States History of the foreign relations of the United States Spanish–American War Banana Wars 1895 in the United States Guyana–Venezuela border Foreign relations of the United States Monroe Doctrine