THE ‘THIRD WORLD LAWYER’

COLONIAL PRACTICES AND RESISTANCE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL LAW IN ALLENDE’S CHILE

Abstract

This article aims to describe in detail and analyze the international legal arguments that justified the economic policies of nationalization of natural resources adopted in the context of Salvador Allende’s government (1970-1973) in Chile. We will focus on the work of the jurist Eduardo Novoa Monreal, Allende’s advisor and the legal mind behind the Chilean copper nationalization project. We will analyze his main publications from the 1970s aiming to answer the following questions: what were the international legal arguments presented by Novoa Monreal that made legally adequate the copper nationalization project in Chile? What were the main references that supported his theses? How did the Chilean author view colonialism and imperialism in their relation to international law? To what extent can law be seen as an obstacle or an instrument of social transformation in Novoa Monreal’s view? In this setting, we seek to open space for future research on how to position Latin American jurists such as Novoa Monreal in discussions about critical international law in the 1970s.