DEFENCE TREATY SIGNED BY 19 AMERICAN REPUBLICS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1947, Page 5

DEFENCE TREATY SIGNED BY 19 AMERICAN REPUBLICS

RIO DE JANEIRO, August 30

The 19 Republics participating in the inter-American conference at Petropolis today unanimously approved a mutual defence treaty providing for collective action to block aggression against the territory of any American State. The treaty defines a western hemisphere security zone, running from the North Pole to the South Pole, and including Canada and Greenland which, however, were not represented at the conference, and are not parties to the treaty. The treaty, in effect, formalises a great geographical extension of the Monroe Doctrine and serves notice that an attack on any weak or strong nation within the new boundary will be met with the total resistance of all.

An unprecedented feature of the treaty is its mandatory obligation for all signatories to apply diplomatic, commercial and economic sanctions once they are voted by twothirds of the Americas. Military sanctions are left to the decision of individual countries, with no country obliged to use its armed forces against its will.