Alejandro Alvarez

Manuel Alejandro Alvarez Jofre was a Chilean jurist and diplomat who lived from 9 February 1868 to 19 July 1960 and became one of the principal architects of a distinctly American approach to international law. He qualified as a lawyer at the University of Chile in 1892 and earned a doctorate from the University of Paris, then began teaching comparative civil law at the University of Chile in 1901 and became legal advisor to the Chilean Foreign Ministry in 1906. He helped found the American Institute of International Law and the Institute of Higher International Studies at the law faculty of Paris, was elected to the Institut de Droit International in 1913, and served as a judge of the International Court of Justice from 1946 to 1955, after which he was named ambassador for life in 1959. His writings include American Problems in International Law and The Monroe Doctrine, Its Importance in the International Life of the States of the New World, and he received honorary doctorates from universities in Buenos Aires, Strasbourg and Chile and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932, 1933 and 1934.