Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Continental Peace and

a Pan-American conference convened on the initiative of the USA and held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from Aug. 15 to Sept. 2, 1947. The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance was adopted by the conference. It was signed on Sept. 2, 1947, and took effect in December 1948.

Article 3 of the treaty states that “an armed attack by any states against an American state shall be considered as an attack against all the American states”; consequently, each of the signatories must “undertake to assist in meeting the attack.” Under the pretext of combating indirect aggression, Article 6 allows for the suppression of democratic movements in any Latin-American country, qualifying these movements as threats to the “peace of America.” As a whole, the treaty was aimed at further increasing the influence of the USA in the Western Hemisphere.