Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Misiones adjudication relied on US president Grover Cleveland as its plenipo-
tentate. Rio Branco went to Washington, DC, and became integrated into its diplomat-
ic circles. He also went regularly to New York to confer with professor of internation-
al law John Bassett Moore of Columbia University, who would become a key figure in
the Amazon Scrambles. Moore was one of the great practitioners in an emerging inter-
national culture of adjudication and global law, and he became a judge in the Interna-
tional Court at The Hague. Moore was a frequent consultant to Brazil's foreign ministry
and was Rio Branco's legal “muse.” He helped establish the modern uses of the Monroe
lic intellectual on international diplomacy, Moore wrote for
Harper's
and the
New York
Times
; today there is a stamp that commemorates him.
The case of Misiones, one of the most complex nodes of territorial dispute, involved
a long history of overlapping claims, mapping mistakes, and historical drama. Eventu-
ally it was a diplomatic triumph for Brazil, even though Brazil's precedence over Ar-
gentina was initially difficult to imagine. Rio Branco's residence in the United States,
his affability, and a widening circle of “friends in Washington” certainly cannot have
escaped President Cleveland's notice. But the hallmark of Rio Branco's work was his
painstaking scholarship in historical reviews of chronicles, maps, pacts, and history of
settlement. There was also no substitute for knowing the actual geography: one of the
key river boundaries in Misiones proved to have been misidentified, and the earlier ter-
ritorial demarcation by binational committees had not been carried out, opening the way
for Rio Branco's unique historical style of scientific “lawfare.”
The agility of the arguments and the depth of the research in the adjudications projec-
ted Brazil strongly into the international arena and helped forge Rio Branco's relations
with United States, which would stand him in good stead in the Purús controversies and
probablycementedhisdecisiontoultimatelyallywithNorthAmericaratherthanEurope
have been achievement enough, because this was a rich area, contested and well known,
well mapped for centuries. Rio Branco would point out that virtually the entire popu-
lace was composed of Brazilians, even though this was a relatively recent development,
brought about by the tumultuous expulsion of Argentineans and Jesuits and the pitiless
plate for later conflicts.
How
Brazilians got there,
when
they arrived, and
who
they were
(citizens or not) were of little interest;
that
they were Brazilian was key.
Recipes for Territorial Rights
Rio Branco used a set of techniques in this initial foray that later defined his diplomatic
strategyinAmazonia.First,hechallengedclaimsbasedontheinherentvaguenessofthe
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