The Inter-American System and Recent Caribbean Disputes

Within the past eighteen months three disputes involving American republics in the Caribbean area have been brought officially before the Organization of American States. In each instance the Organization, through its Council, as mediator and conciliator, has taken action crowned with at least temporary success. This concentrated testing of a new international institution (new in the sense of recent reconstitution by charter) suggests the need to examine the cases for light thrown on the following questions: What are some of the fundamental causes of Caribbean friction and to what extent can the Organization alleviate them; what is the specific nature of the cases with which the Council has had to deal; what instruments and techniques have been employed in their settlement; and, finally, what tentative conclusions seem warranted as to the efficacy of the inter-American system in the field of pacific settlement?