AMERICAN TREATY ON PACIFIC SETTLEMENT
“PACT OF BOGOTÁ”
Signed at Bogotá, April 30, 1948
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL OBLIGATION TO SETTLE DISPUTES BY PACIFIC MEANS
ARTICLE I. The High Contracting Parties, solemnly reaffirming their commitments
made in earlier international conventions and declarations, as well as in the Charter of the
United Nations, agree to refrain from the threat or the use of force, or from any other
means of coercion for the settlement of their controversies, and to have recourse at all
times to pacific procedures.
ARTICLE II. The High Contracting Parties recognize the obligation to settle international
controversies by regional procedures before referring them to the Security Council of the
United Nations.
Consequently, in the event that a controversy arises between two or more signatory states
which, in the opinion of the parties, cannot be settled by direct negotiations through the
usual diplomatic channels, the parties bind themselves to use the procedures established
in the present Treaty, in the manner and under the conditions provided for in the
following articles, or, alternatively, such special procedures as, in their opinion, will
permit them to arrive at a solution.
