Montevideo Convention

The Montevideo Convention, formally the Convention on Rights and Duties of States, was signed at Montevideo on 26 December 1933 by the governments represented at the Seventh International Conference of American States. It entered into force on 26 December 1934, and the United States ratified it with a reservation in June 1934. Article 1 lists the qualifications a state should possess as a person of international law: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Article 3 says the political existence of a state is independent of recognition by other states, Article 4 makes states juridically equal, and Article 8 states that no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another, an article reaffirmed by a protocol of 1936. Article 11 binds the contracting states not to recognize territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained by force.