Alfonso García Robles

Alfonso García Robles
Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico
In office December 29, 1975 – November 30, 1976
President	Luis Echeverría Álvarez
Preceded by	Emilio Ó. Rabasa
Succeeded by	Santiago Roel
Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations
In office December 14, 1970 – January 1, 1976
President	Luis Echeverría Álvarez
Preceded by	Francisco Cuevas Cancino
Succeeded by	Roberto de Rosenzweig-Díaz Azmitia
Ambassador of Mexico to Brazil
In office September 28, 1961 – March 1, 1964
President	Adolfo López Mateos
Preceded by	Pedro Inzunza Mckay
Succeeded by	Roberto de Rosenzweig-Díaz Azmitia
Personal details
Born	(1911-03-20)March 20, 1911 Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico
Died	September 2, 1991(1991-09-02) (aged 80) Federal District, Mexico
Party	Institutional Revolutionary Party
Spouse(s)	Juana María de Szyslo Valdelomar (Peruvian, 1922–2005)
Alma mater	National Autonomous University of Mexico
Profession	Diplomat and lawyer

José Alfonso Eufemio Nicolás de Jesús García Robles (Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico; March 20, 1911 – Mexico City, September 2, 1991) was a Mexican diplomat who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs between 1975 and 1976.

He was president of the Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America, whose work culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Tlatelolco on February 14, 1967. In 1982 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Swede Alva Reimer Myrdal, "for their work for disarmament and nuclear and weapon-free zones." He also played a central role in promoting general disarmament at the UN General Assembly in 1978 and 1982. He joined El Colegio Nacional on July 20, 1972.

Likewise, during his diplomatic career he was Mexico's ambassador to Brazil and to the United Nations.

Biography

Alfonso García Robles was born in Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico, on March 20, 1911.

Education

He was a student at a renowned Jesuit school in Guadalajara, belonging to the Salesian Tito Durán. He studied Law, graduating from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and did postgraduate studies at the Institute of Advanced International Studies, which is now part of Paris II Panthéon-Assas University, in 1936, and at the Hague Academy of International Law in 1938. He was named the "Aguja" ("Needle") because in 1937 he created a campaign to save the needlefish.

In the Mexican Foreign Service

He joined his country's foreign service in 1939 as third secretary of the Embassy of Mexico in Sweden.

He was transferred to Mexico in 1941 to join the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE), where he remained for five years as deputy director of Political Affairs of the Diplomatic Service.

Later, as Secretary of International Affairs of the National Planning Commission for Peace, he took part in the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945, where the legal foundations of the United Nations (UN) were laid.

United Nations official

From 1946 to 1956 he lived in New York City, working for the UN as head of the Political Division of the Department of Security Council Affairs.

He was the UN representative at the Pan-American Conference in Bogotá (1948), at which the Charter of the Organization of American States was signed.

In 1950 he married Juana María Szyszlo, a young Peruvian woman and UN official, with whom he would have two children.

Return to the Mexican Foreign Service

From 1958 to 1960 he was Director-in-Chief for European, Asian and International Organization Affairs at the SRE. During this period he dealt with the Law of the Sea, contributing to the conferences in Geneva.

From 1962 to 1964 he held the post of ambassador to Brazil.

From 1964 to 1970 he was Undersecretary of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.

The Treaty of Tlatelolco

As a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Adolfo López Mateos, "who extended Mexico's diplomatic networks beyond their traditional limits and devoted major efforts to fostering Latin American integration", promoted denuclearization in the region: the idea was to secure the prohibition of nuclear weapons and to ensure that this part of the world would not be involved in any conflict between the great rival powers.

García Robles played a crucial role in launching and implementing the agreement, coming to be nicknamed "the father of the Tlatelolco agreement." The negotiations were conducted by García Robles together with two other prominent Mexican diplomats:

"The records of the negotiations reveal names of enormous stature: Alfonso García Robles, a distinguished jurist and the spirit of the treaty, who served as Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 for the treaty's success. His delegation included names of great caliber such as Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, an international jurist who would later also head Foreign Affairs, and Ismael Moreno Pino, a great promoter of multilateralism in Mexico and ambassador in the main European capitals and at the United Nations" – Alejandro Alday González, Director General of the Matías Romero Institute of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.

The delegations of other countries included similarly prominent diplomats: José Sette Câmara, representative of Brazil; Alberto Sepúlveda Contreras, representative of Chile; Leopoldo Benítez, representative of Ecuador; and even Juan Natalicio González, former President of Paraguay.

The United Nations General Assembly authorized COPREDAL on November 27, 1963. The Preliminary Meeting on the Denuclearization of Latin America (REUPRAL) created the Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America (COPREDAL). Between 1964 and 1967, four sessions of COPREDAL were held in Mexico City.

Alfonso García Robles, then Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, headed the Mexican delegation but was appointed president of COPREDAL, for which reason Ambassador Ismael Moreno Pino, head of the Undersecretariat for Multilateral Affairs, had to take on the representation of Mexico's interests at the conference.

As president of COPREDAL, he chaired the meetings held in Mexico City from 1964 onward which, after years of patient negotiation, concluded with the signing on February 14, 1967, of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco. "Its historical significance is unquestionable. From its intellectual conception to its signing, distinguished minds of the American continent took part in its formulation, faithfully representing a generation anguished by the horrors of two world wars and the threat of a third—which found its most delicate moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962—a generation that incessantly sought peace and concord among nations, sheltered by the incipient multilateral system of the League of Nations."

Peak of his diplomatic career

From 1971 to 1975 he was Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations and chaired the Group of 77.

He joined El Colegio Nacional on April 4, 1972, with the lecture "El desarme y las Naciones Unidas" ("Disarmament and the United Nations"), which was introduced by Dr. Antonio Gómez Robledo.

Between 1975 and 1976 he was Mexico's Foreign Minister.

From 1977 he was Mexico's permanent representative to the United Nations Committee on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1978 he was head of the Mexican delegation to the First Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly and was one of those responsible for the adoption of "the final document."

Honors and Nobel Prize

Alfonso Garcia Robles in 1981

In 1982 the President of the Republic, José López Portillo, designated him ambassador emeritus, an honor reserved for ten ambassadors who have rendered outstanding service to the Republic in matters of foreign policy.

In September 1982 he was awarded the Decoration of the Mexican Foreign Service.

In October 1982 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for "his magnificent work in the United Nations disarmament negotiations," a distinction he shared with the Swedish diplomat and writer Alva Reimer Myrdal.

Death

He died on September 2, 1991, in Mexico City. He was buried in the Panteón Español (Spanish Cemetery), located in the Miguel Hidalgo borough.

After his death

García Robles's personal archive and his library of 1,100 volumes were donated by his widow to the University of Virginia in the United States in 1998.

On April 24, 2003, his name was unveiled in letters of gold on one of the walls of the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, seat of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico.

Recognition

During the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Faculty of Law of La Salle University, a bust was unveiled in his honor, conveying that efforts and great sacrifices obtain their great rewards.

Publications

• Le Panaméricanisme et la Politique de Bon Voisinage (Paris, 1938).
• Premier Congres d´études Internationales (1938).
• La Question du Pétrole au Mexique et le Droit International (1939).
• La cláusula Calvo ante el derecho internacional (1939).
• El mundo de la posguerra (2 vols., 1946).
• La conferencia de San Francisco y su obra (1946).
• Política internacional de México (1946).
• La desnuclearización de América Latina (1965).
• La anchura del mar territorial (1966).
• El Tratado de Tlatelolco. Génesis, alcance y propósito de la proscripción de armas nucleares en América Latina (1967).
• Tratado para la prohibición de armas nucleares en América Latina.

External links

• Secretariat of Foreign Affairs
• Information from the Nobel Committee (in English)
• Information on Mexican Nobel laureates