Carlos Saavedra Lamas

Carlos Saavedra Lamas was born in Buenos Aires into an aristocratic Argentine family; his great-grandfather Cornelio Saavedra was president of the first revolutionary government of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1810. Graduating with a doctorate in law summa cum laude from the University of Buenos Aires in 1903, Saavedra Lamas became an eminent professor of international law and labor legislation, and served as Minister of Justice and Public Instruction in 1915.

Appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Agustín Pedro Justo in 1932, Saavedra Lamas authored the Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation (commonly known as the Saavedra Lamas Treaty). Signed in Rio de Janeiro in October 1933, the treaty condemned aggressive warfare, refused to recognize territorial annexations obtained through force, and established diplomatic non-intervention mechanisms, being ratified by twenty-one American republics and eleven European nations.

Between 1932 and 1935, South America was convulsed by the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, the bloodiest military conflict in the Western Hemisphere in the twentieth century. Saavedra Lamas organized a diplomatic mediation commission uniting Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States, skillfully brokering a complete armistice signed in Buenos Aires on 12 June 1935. In 1936, Saavedra Lamas was unanimously elected President of the Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva, and in December 1936 became the first Latin American in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.