IX Summit of the Americas

A Special Bookazine Edition

BY ADAM RATZLAFF

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A Special Bookazine Edition

IX SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS JUNE 6-9, 2022 LOS ANGELES, USA

BY ADAM RATZLAFF

EDITOR SHANE SZARKOWSKI ART DIRECTOR MARC GARFIELD PUBLISHER ANA C. ROLD

PUBLISHING HOUSE DIPLOMATIC COURIER | MEDAURAS GLOBAL WASHINGTON, DC

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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION REFLECTIONS ON THE IX SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS.............................................................06

PUTTING THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE | JANUARY 18, 2021...........................................................................................................................................08 THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS MATTERS MORE THAN EVER | JULY 9, 2021..........................................................................................................................................................15 WHEN IT COMES TO DEFENDING DEMOCRACY, THINK GLOBAL, ACT REGIONAL | DECEMBER 13, 2021.........................................................................................................................................21 ENTERING THE SUMMIT WITHOUT A FULL TEAM | FEBRUARY 8, 2022.......................................................................................................................................25 WHO MAKES THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS GUEST LIST? | MAY 13, 2022.......................................................................................................................................................29 THE UNITED STATES AS PART OF THE AMERICAS | MAY 20, 2022.....................................................................................................................................................33 HOLLYWOOD FOR THE AMERICAS | MAY 27, 2022.......................................................................................................................................................37 KEEPING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE DREAM ALIVE | JUNE 7, 2022........................................................................................................................................................41 CONCLUSION IMPLICATIONS OF THE IX SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS.............................................................44

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REFLECTIONS

ON THE IX SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS

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rom June 6-9, 2022, the United States hosted leaders from across the Americas at the IX Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, CA. Under the theme “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future,” this was only the second time that the United States had hosted the Summit of the Americas since its inception in 1994 and many hoped that it would provide the stage for the Biden administration to reinvigorate Inter-American affairs and layout a clear direction for U.S.-Latin American foreign policy.

However, despite some important actions and a great deal of fanfare, this was not to happen.

In fact, the process was anything, but smooth. While the IX Summit was initially planned for 2021, the global COVID-19 pandemic and it being the first year of the Biden administration led to the postponement of the Summit until 2022. While this delay and a new administration could have provided opportunities to develop a comprehensive and shared agenda with the region, the Biden administration faced an uphill battle in preparing for the Summit and in highlighting its agenda to the region. One of these challenges came from the fact that the Biden administration did not have a full ambassadorial team in place across the Americas. In fact, a year into the administration, half of the ambassadorships in the Americas remained vacant and even the ambassador to the Organization of American States—the central regional organization for InterAmerican relations—remained empty.

This was followed up by the Biden administration announcing that they did not plan on inviting countries that they viewed as undemocratic—namely Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The announcement that this was one of the intents of the United States led to a number of countries in the region threatening to boycott the Summit if the United States did not invite all of the countries of the Americas. This defiance of U.S. prerogatives highlighted the degree to which U.S influence in the region has 6 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

declined since the first Summit as well as the degree to which countries would resist U.S. desires in the region.

While the final decision not announced until just days before leaders were expected to arrive at the Summit—with the final decision being to exclude these three countries—much of the reporting and attention surrounding the Summit focused on who would and would not attend the Summit rather than on the issues that impacted the citizens of the Americas. In the end, the presidents of some countries did opt to boycott, including Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador—three countries that are of paramount importance to conversations surrounding migration, one of the key issues of the summit.

These types of challenges led officials—both from the United States and abroad—to say that the Summit process had been “messier than envisioned” and “improvised.” Yet despite these challenges, the Biden administration used the week of the Summit to launch several initiatives and reach some agreements in key areas—albeit with several countries’ leaders not in attendance. This is a shame given that the Summit came at such a critical time. Not only was democracy under assault, but the region is facing unprecedented challenges and was the most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite their differences, these threats require collective approaches and there is a long history of pushing for hemispheric solidarity and cooperation.

This collection of essays and videos represent some of the contemporaneous analysis and thoughts that I had in the lead up and over the course of the Summit. While certain elements may have changed evolved, this collection highlights some of the opportunities—missed and taken—as well as challenges that arose of the course of the Summits process. I hope that these essays provide some insight into these opportunities and challenges and encourage readers to think more deeply about the future of Pan-American cooperation and governance.

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PUTTING THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE JANUARY 18, 2021

Source: LatinDispatch.com

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n 1994, President William J. Clinton met with all of the democratically elected leaders of the Americas in Miami, Florida, at the first Summit of the Americas. With the end of the Cold War and its implications for U.S. interests in the region, many believed that this could be an opportunity for improved U.S.-Latin American relations. At the Summit, an impressive agenda laid out an action plan for collaboration across the Americas in a number of different areas, including the promotion of a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, collaboration to support democratic governance, and even collective action in addressing climate change and natural disasters.

However, the high hopes of the so-called “Spirit of Miami” were short-lived. Although the Summit of the Americas continued, many of the goals and hopes were soon abandoned, leaving some scholars and pundits to question the utility of continuing the Summits, and others claiming that they had already seen its rise and fall.

However, with the ninth Summit of the Americas being hosted by the United States this year, cautiously optimistic opinions are beginning to emerge about the prospects of the Summit’s process. This is particularly noteworthy given that in recent years, there has been increasing pessimism regarding the status of both the Summits of the Americas and hemispheric affairs more broadly. Beyond President Donald Trump becoming the first U.S. president to skip a Summit of the Americas in 2018, and the region’s increasing polarization (epitomized by the disinvitation of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to the 2018 Summit), the region is facing some of its greatest challenges to date. However, history suggests that optimists of the Summits of the Americas have reason to be hopeful.

The Summits of the Americas are not the first attempt at encouraging and promoting regional cooperation in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, regional cooperation and integration have a long history in the region, with important parallels between the Summits of the Americas and a previous U.S.-led attempt at promoting regional integration—the InterAmerican Conferences that ran from 1889 to 1954. While this period was marked by ups and downs in the relationship between the United States and Latin America, it also resulted in the development of the Inter-American system, including the development of several key organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS; as well as its predecessor organization, the Pan-American Union) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO). Understanding DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 9

some of the successes and pitfalls of previous efforts at regional integration and cooperation—while also discerning possible similarities to the contemporaneous state of the Summits of the Americas—highlights the need to maintain this process of continued cooperation.

Perhaps the clearest parallel between the Summits of the Americas and the Inter-American Conferences has to do with the timing of two U.S.-led processes. Following the U.S. Civil War, the United States entered the Reconstruction Period, in many ways focusing on its own internal development. However, with the second Industrial Revolution and rapid expansion of the country, the United States quickly found itself emerging as a global power by the end of the 19th century. With newly-gained power, the U.S. turned outwards, seeing opportunities to collaborate more closely with its neighbors in Latin America. It was in this light that the United States sought to expand its influence and display its prowess by inviting Latin American diplomats to the First Inter-American Conference in 1889-1890. Likewise, with the end of the Cold War, the world shifted into a “Unipolar Moment,” with the United States sitting in a new, unique position.

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In addition to the timing of these two U.S.-led processes, the initial push for the conferences began with similar concerns and objectives. As the United States rose to power at the end of the 1800s, one area of interest was opening trade with Latin America—so much so that creating a shared customs union was one of the primary U.S. objectives during the first Inter-American Conference. Moreover, the invitation to the first Summit of the Americas came shortly after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the development of a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) was one of the cornerstones of the discussion. While unsuccessful in establishing such a trade agreement at the time, trade remained a central area for cooperation in both series of regional dialogue.

At the first and second Inter-American Conferences, Latin American leaders pushed the United States to support their inclusion in international conferences hosted by the European powers, and to ban the practice of military intervention to protect business interests. Additionally, public health concerns were raised by many Latin American leaders, resulting in the development of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, the predecessor to PAHO, which still exists today.

Similarly, during the first Summit of the Americas Latin American leaders called for the strengthening of regional and international law and the promotion of development in the region. While the Summit had a broad agenda, the articulation and execution of two particular articles of regional law were of central focus. The first component was that the Miami Summit, besides setting a precedent for the ongoing series of regional summits, marked an important effort to regionalize a response to climate change. While this issue was not fully addressed immediately following the Summit, it symbolized a decisive regional effort to begin addressing a common challenge.

The other area of regional law that was more fully realized as a result of the Summits process was the strengthening and development of regional mechanisms to address challenges to democracy in the Americas, resulting in the 2001 signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. While there were challenges when implementing the Charter, at the time it marked an important and collective action to define democracy and address democratic setbacks. As for the Inter-American Conferences, they highlighted critical efforts to identify and approach issues that affected not only the region, but also lay some of the groundwork for global strategies.

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Both processes also faced challenges due to shifting U.S. interests regarding the importance and role of Latin America on the global stage. Shortly after the excitement of the first InterAmerican Conference, U.S. interest in the region transitioned from one of collaboration to one of intervention.

In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain and expanded its territorial claims into the Caribbean. This would soon be followed by U.S. support for Panamanian independence (in order to gain the right to build a Trans-Isthmian Canal), the announcement of the Roosevelt Corollary (with the United States claiming the right to intervene in the region), and a period of U.S. military intervention and occupation in many Central American and Caribbean states. As the United States moved from a collaborative approach with Latin America towards one of confrontation, the Inter-American Conference process faltered as the region became increasingly wary of the United States.

However, a return and strengthening of the Inter-American system occurred nearly 40 years after the inception of the InterAmerican Conferences. The latter years of the Inter-American Conferences served as an important forum for improving U.S.-Latin American relations. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented his “Good Neighbor Policy,” and used the Inter-American Conferences as an opportunity to regain mutual trust with Latin America and to advocate for improved relations within the region. At the conferences, the Roosevelt administration pushed for promoting trade as a response to the global crisis, and regularly sought regional support for a number of important initiatives. As WWII came to a close, the Inter-American Conferences would also serve as the grounds to announce important collaborative initiatives such as the development of the Rio Treaty—one of the world’s oldest mutual defense treaties—and the replacement of the Pan-American Union with the Organization of American States (OAS).

While the Summits of the Americas have faced challenges, and the goals of the first summit remain largely unrealized, this does not mean that the process is futile or that it cannot be revived to meet the needs of the Americas in the 21st century.

If anything, the trajectory of the Inter-American Conferences highlights that, despite the challenges facing the hemisphere, cooperation is still possible, and that strengthening the InterAmerican system is a long, but feasible, process. Rather than despairing at the challenges facing the hemisphere 12 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

and decrying the summits as meaningless, leaders across the Americas should embrace the upcoming summit as an opportunity to improve and invigorate hemispheric affairs.

The ninth Inter-American Conference resulted in the creation of the Organization of American States, perhaps the ninth Summit of the Americas can mark a new beginning in InterAmerican affairs. ***** Editor’s Note: Originally published on Global Americans.

Available at: https://theglobalamericans.org/2021/01/puttingthe-summits-of-the-americas-in-historic-perspective/.

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Photo by Ian Hutchinson via Unsplash.

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THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS MATTERS MORE THAN EVER JULY 9, 2021

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or the first time since the inaugural Summit of the Americas in 1994, the United States is hosting the Summit of the Americas. While originally scheduled for 2021, the IX Summit has been postponed until 2022 and will bring together the executives of all of the countries of the Americas to discuss the challenges that face the region and collective responses to address them.

However, while this is the United States’ second time hosting the summit, the situation facing the Americas looks extraordinarily different than it did in 1994, and ensuring that the summit can be used to address the needs facing the hemisphere in the third decade of the 21st century will require addressing problems that were not envisioned at the first summit as well as returning to many of the summit’s core principles that are yet to be fully addressed.

When the first Summit of the Americas took place in Miami, in December 1994, the global outlook, and particularly that of the Americas, looked very different than it does today. The United States had “won” the Cold War and the region had been swept up in the third wave of democratization. It seemed as though the “end of history” had been reached and a consensus on market approaches to addressing the challenges facing the region was widely held.

This vision was reflected in the agenda and outcomes of the summit which included calls to advance free trade, collective action on climate change, take collective action to reduce poverty and inequality, promote human rights, and combat terrorism and illicit drug trades. Furthermore, the new democracies of the region sought to safe-guard their DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 15

democratic transitions and collectively worked through the Organization of American States and the summits process to pass the Inter-American Democratic Charter in 2001. Leaving the conference there was a great deal of hope, the so-called “Spirit of Miami,” that collective action from across the region could address these issues and finally improve relations across the region.

Many of these hopes and the consensus on a number of issues has dissolved. Pushback against free trade principles resulted in the death of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that had been hyped at the First Summit of the Americas. The dissolved consensus on economics has been exacerbated by the erosion of democracy in many countries in the region. At the first Summit of the Americas, nearly every country in the Americas, with the notable exception of Cuba (who was not invited to the first summit), was considered to be a democracy.

Yet despite Inter-American Democratic Charter, challenges to democratic governance have persisted across much of the region. In fact, in 2021 Freedom House reports 11 countries that are only partially free while three are not free in the region. While the OAS and regional bodies have taken steps to address some of the most egregious examples of democratic crises, there are concerns that these crises have not been addressed equally and in addressing democratic challenges that are short of full blown crises. These changes have resulted in increasingly polarized dynamics in Inter-American affairs and made collective action in the Hemisphere all the more difficult.

Despite these differences, the Summits of the Americas have continued, finding ground for collective action and agreement on key issues. Importantly, the OAS and the countries of the Americas have continued to pass conventions on a number of key issues related to human rights and collaboration in several functional areas. Additionally, at the most recent Summit of the Americas in 2018, the governments of the region signed on to the Lima Commitment, creating reporting mechanisms and efforts to combat corruption in the region.

In addition to these longer-term trends, the IX Summit of the Americas comes as the region reels from the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Although the Americas account for approximately 13.2% of the global population, as of this writing, the World Health Organization reports that the Americas account for approximately 39.8% of COVID cases and, with approximately 1.9 million deaths, 48.2% of the global death toll from COVID-19. Furthermore, according to the IMF, the 16 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

Latin America and Caribbean region was the hardest hit region economically across the globe in 2020, with the regional GDP contracting by approximately 7% (compared to 3.3% globally) and only anticipating a rebound of 4.6% percent in 2021.

Furthermore, although the United States, Canada, Chile, and Uruguay have had relatively successful vaccination campaigns, many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean lag behind.

All of these challenges facing the region and collective governance shape both the agenda for the IX Summit of the Americas as well as the likelihood of success in collectively resolving the challenges facing the region. While the United States has not yet announced the exact data nor theme of the summit, several key issues are being discussed by the OAS’s Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG) and will likely be important elements on the agenda. These largely fall into 4 key categories; 1.

2.

3.

4.

Governance, Anti-Corruption and Human Rights; Pandemic Response and Resilience; Climate Change and Sustainable Development; and Economic Growth and Social Inclusion.

These issue areas highlight both the new challenges facing the region as well as the continuance of challenges that are yet to be resolved since the first summit. As with the first summit, this agenda would suggest that there is a regional interest in collectively addressing issues related to economic growth, social empowerment, human rights, climate change, and governance issues. However, there are likely to be differences in how these issues are addressed and the importance given to these different topics and the policy recommendations that governments take to address them. For instance, while the issue of climate change was on the agenda in 1994, trade and democratic governance dominated the discussion. Additionally, while there is consensus on the need to support democratic governance, anti-corruption, and sustainable development in the Americas, exactly what each of these topics entails no longer has the same level of agreement as was seen in 1994.

In addition to the SIRG hosting discussions on these topics, background documents have been prepared for SIRG discussions by some U.S. organizations. To date, two primary documents were requested and prepared for the Summit Implementation Review Group; one looking at the role of the Private Sector in Inclusive Growth and the other focused on strengthening democracy in the region. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Council of the Americas discussion DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 17

paper on the Private sector and inclusive growth focused on the important role that the private sector will need to play in addressing the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, they expressed a great deal of concern over the lack of digital infrastructure and the equality of access to technological resources in countries across the region. This discussion paper also focused on the importance of developing collective mechanisms to address future public health emergencies. While this may seem clear in light of the on-going pandemic, it is worth noting that this is a return to old values of Pan-Americanism. In fact, early efforts to promote cooperation in the Americas resulted in the development of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, the forefather of the contemporary Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO).

While the topic of democracy was not directly mentioned in the SIRG’s meeting agenda for the summit, the IX Summit of the Americas comes on the heels of the 20th anniversary of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the issue was hotly debated in the session on governance, anti-corruption and human rights. Additionally, just a month after the SIRG co-hosted a related event on the 20th anniversary of the InterAmerican Democratic Charter. With the number of democratic challenges that are facing the region, the IX Summit may serve as an opportunity to revisit the Inter-American Defense of Democracy Regime and work collectively to strengthen the mechanisms available to actors in the region to combat democratic crises. Although the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI) prepared a discussion paper on addressing democratic challenges in the region, the ongoing challenges in the region have further politicized the issue and may make strengthening these mechanisms difficult despite the clear need to do so.

The challenges that face the hemisphere are large and transnational in nature. Despite the polarized state of Inter-American politics, the IX Summit of the Americas can serve as an opportunity to look for common ground on how to address these challenges. With the hemisphere bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact and facing numerous governance challenges, a collective response will be needed to ensure that each country is able to fully recover. As leaders from across the hemisphere gather at the summit, they have the opportunity to charter a course towards a more collaborative region. What remains to be seen is whether or not they will be able to find common ground and address the most pressing challenges facing the Americas.

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Photo by Adobe Stock.

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WHEN IT COMES TO DEFENDING DEMOCRACY, THINK GLOBAL, ACT REGIONAL DECEMBER 13, 2021

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oting the threats to democratic governance in many parts of the world, the Biden Administration has announced its intent to make the promotion of democracy a central element of its foreign policy and hosted a Summit for Democracy. There is a clear need to address the democratic decline occurring across the world, including in the United States. While there are limited tools for tackling democratic decline globally, there is an important legacy of protecting and expanding democracy in the Americas and important tools for the defense of democracy have been developed. The last couple of years have highlighted just how great the challenges are in the Americas as well as the desire of citizens across the region to address democratic deficits.

The United States and its partners in the region should focus on strengthening mechanisms in the Americas as a model for the global defense of democracy.

The Americas have a legacy of being a bastion of democracy in the world and of striving to maintain that position. Following the widespread experience of dictatorships across the region during the Cold War, the turn towards democracy as part of the “Third Wave” of democratization was keenly felt in the region. In order to ensure that these gains were maintained, governments across the region collaborated to develop mechanisms to defend against democratic crises and the return to authoritarianism in the future. These efforts culminated in the passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in 2001 DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 21

which provided tools to the Organization of American States (OAS), the region’s predominant multilateral organization, to address democratic crises. While there have been issues with the usage of the Charter, it remains an important tool for addressing democratic crises in the region.

Although the region has a history of democratic governance, many countries in the region have recently seen democratic backsliding. Just this year, we have seen the U.S. Capital attacked, the assassination of Haitian President Moisel, rapidly escalating authoritarian tendencies in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, pro-coup comments from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, as well as the on-going democratic crisis in Venezuela among other ongoing and escalating threats to democracy in the Americas. Even in countries with strong democratic legacies, trust in democracy has been declining over the past decade. Despite waning support for democracy, citizens in the Americas have also sought to strengthen their voices at home as was seen this year with the unprecedented levels of social mobilization in Cuba and Colombia. These challenges and opportunities led U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to note in a trip to the region that the Americas are “…in a moment of democratic reckoning.”

Given the state of democracy in the Western Hemisphere and the fact that there are mechanisms and commitments in place to address democratic decline, the United States should seek to stabilize and strengthen democracy in the region before seeking to address the crisis on a global scale. While it is important that this issue was emphasized and discussed at the international level at the Summit for Democracy, seeking solutions for addressing democratic crises within a region that has a long history of seeking to support democratic ideals can allow for a better understanding of what mechanisms work to address democratic erosion and crisis that can be scaled up to address global threats to democracy.

The Biden Administration also has multiple opportunities to push a democratic agenda in the region in the coming year.

With 2021 marking the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the OAS has held events about looking for mechanisms to strengthen the Inter-American Democratic Charter. There is hope that the IX Summit of the Americas, will provide an opportunity to address some of the democratic challenges facing the Americas and strengthen the Charter. Furthermore, with the United States hosting the Summit of the Americas in 2022 for the first time since 1994, the Biden Administration has an opportunity to build upon 22 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

efforts from the Summit for Democracy to develop a regional agenda for addressing democratic challenges.

While the Biden Administration may face challenges in building momentum from countries to address these challenges given the history of U.S. interventionism in the region, it is critical that the administration work with regional partners to develop mechanisms to address regional democratic challenges. The region has reason to be wary of U.S. rhetoric of democracy promotion. As Secretary Blinken highlighted, “…the United States has not always practiced what it preached in our hemisphere, that there are times in our history when we supported governments in the Americas that did not reflect the choice or the will of their people and did not respect their human rights.” Despite this, the region recognizes the threats to democracy that it faces and has a history of seeking to make the hemisphere safe for democracy. Highlighting that this is a problem for the United States as well and showing a willingness to learn from Latin American experiences can help highlight that the Biden Administration takes this issue seriously and wants to work with the region.

Not only does the region have a strong legacy of democracy despite the recent onslaught against it, but has developed mechanisms to address democratic threats in the region.

Given this, before the United States goes around trying to solve the global democratic threats, it should make sure that its neighborhood is democratically sound and learn the necessary lessons to develop global regimes for the defense of democracy.

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Photo by Joel Mott via Unsplash.

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ENTERING THE SUMMIT WITHOUT A FULL TEAM FEBRUARY 8, 2022

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he United States is hosting the IX Summit of the Americas in 2022 in Los Angeles, the first time that the Summit has been hosted by the United States since the first Summit was held in Miami in 1994. This Summit comes at a time when the Hemisphere faces unprecedented challenges and the need for collective efforts to address them is greater than ever. These include the fact that the region was the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, a “democratic recession,” the ongoing threat of climate change, and questions about the future of Inter-American solidarity. As such, the Biden Administration must make the most out of not only the Summit, but in shoring up commitments made during the Summit to tackle these crises. However, following up on these commitments may prove a difficult task.

As we approach the Summit of the Americas, the United States finds itself without ambassadors in many of the countries in the Americas. In fact, of the 28 ambassadorships in countries in the Western Hemisphere, the United States only has confirmed ambassadors in 14 of them. This problem is evident across U.S. embassies worldwide, but the number of vacant ambassadorships among Western Hemisphere countries in the Western Hemisphere represents a greater proportion than that seen among all U.S. ambassadorships, with half of the ambassadorships in countries in the Hemisphere remaining vacant compared to a little over one third globally. This may limit the ability of the United States to fully capitalize on any gains made at the Summit of the Americas.

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Source: American Foreign Service Association. 2022.

Tracker: Current U.S. Ambassadors. Last Accessed February 2, 2022.

In addition to the vacant ambassadorships, it is worth noting that six of the countries constituting the Western Hemisphere do not even have U.S. embassies. All six are located within the Caribbean, an important bloc of countries that the United States cannot ignore in addressing Hemispheric challenges.

If the U.S. wants to be taken seriously as leading on these challenges, it must be serious about establishing embassies in every country in the region, not just the largest ones.

If this was not bad enough, the United States also does not have an ambassador to the region’s primary regional organization, the Organization of American States (OAS). In fact, the OAS houses the Secretariat for Hemispheric Affairs, an organ largely responsible for supporting the Summit process. Additionally, the OAS serves as the primary body for collectively addressing democratic crises and political challenges. Although the Biden Administration formally nominated Francisco Mora, to the position of U.S. ambassador to the OAS in early August, 2021, the Senate is yet to confirm this appointment. Given the importance of the OAS to both the Summits process and in collectively addressing Hemispheric challenges, this empty ambassadorship is a lost opportunity for U.S. cooperation and leadership.

For the Summit of the Americas to be a true success for the United States, it is going to need to be able to follow-up with other countries in the Americas on the commitments made at 26 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

the Summit. This task will require a strong U.S. presence not only at the OAS to work collectively with partners, but also bilateral cooperation between the United States and partners in the region. While much of this work can be done by the embassies regardless of having an ambassador in place, not having ambassadors sends a signal that the United States does not take these countries or issues as seriously as it does others.

While this may not be the case, much of foreign policy rests on perceptions and misperceptions of others actions. With many of the issues that the Biden Administration has claimed as being central to his foreign policy— improving diplomacy, supporting democracy, tackling corruption— sure to be on the Summit agenda and the United States hosting the Summit of the Americas, entering with less than a full team limits the messages that the United States is “back” and hinders U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region.

The IX Summit of the Americas presents the United States with an opportunity radically improve Inter-American relations and tackle some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. However, the Biden Administration may end up squandering this opportunity if it is unable to follow-up from the Summit with a full ambassadorial team. Similarly, not having these ambassadors in place may make leaders in the region feel that they are not a priority for the Administration.

The Biden Administration and its allies in the Senate must show that this is not the case and put the team in place to strengthen Hemispheric ties and make the most of the Summit of the Americas.

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Photo by Ian Hutchinson via Unsplash.

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WHO MAKES THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS GUEST LIST? MAY 13, 2022

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hen former president Bill Clinton hosted the first Summit of the Americas in 1994 in Miami, his team was careful to only invite the democratically elected heads of state of the Hemisphere to the Summit. At the time, this simply meant that Cuba would not be invited to attend the Summit. After all, this was the “unipolar moment” and the “end of history”— democracy was the way of the future. Today, the region looks different with some even declaring that the Americas are in a “democratic recession.” As the United States prepares to host the Summit for the first time since 1994, the Biden Administration is facing its own set of challenges in determining who should make the invite list. This challenge not only impacts the Summit and the Biden Administration, but raises important questions about the very nature of what it means to be part of the Americas.

The pattern of excluding fully non-democratic countries (specifically Cuba) at the Summits of the Americas continued through the first six Summits. However, at the 2012 Summit in Colombia, leaders from across the region called for the inclusion of Cuba in the following Summit of the Americas.

In 2015, in Panama, Cuba made its Summit debut, a moment most marked by the meeting between then-President Obama and Raul Castro. While around this time was a high point for relations between the United States and Cuba, the decision to invite Cuba marked a significant shift in the invitation process that had occurred at the Summits up until this point.

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As rumors swirl about the final invite list to the IX Summit of the Americas, one question seems to be front and center— will the Biden Administration invite leaders that are undemocratic such as those in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela? The Biden Administration has made clear that supporting democracy is central to their foreign policy efforts. While not inviting these leaders would be a clear continuation of the policy used to develop the invite list for the first Summit of the Americas, leaders from Mexico, Brazil, and across the Caribbean have made it clear that the Summit should be open to all of the countries in the Hemisphere, regardless of their government. Some have even suggested that they would not attend the Summit or would send representatives in the place of their presidents.

Should these countries and others boycott the Summit over the invitation list, it will represent a blow to Hemispheric unity, the region’s commitment to democracy, and a black mark on Biden’s Latin America and the Caribbean relationship. It also begs an important question— do countries need to be democratic to be part of the Inter-American community?

Much of the debate about who should be invited raises important questions that lie at the very heart of the InterAmerican system. Since its origins, the Inter-American system, and particularly the Organization of American States (OAS), has rested on two conflictual principles. The first is that of non-intervention and respect for the sovereignty of states.

This element has been a central concern to Latin American and Caribbean governments from the early days of regional integration. These concerns rise out of the region’s history with colonialism as well as of U.S. interventions in the region.

In this sense, the Inter-American system and the OAS were, at least partially, established to protect countries from the worst instincts of the United States. Furthermore, some Latin American countries have long diplomatic histories of collaboration regardless of regime type and even of condemning the domestic politics of other states.

On the other hand, the Inter-American System seeks to uphold human rights and democracy in the region. Early in its founding, the OAS adopted the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, a human rights declaration reached in the same year as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, at the heart of the Organization of American States is a system for promoting Human Rights, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. These bodies seek to promote and defend Human Rights across the region, regardless 30 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

of the government in place. Additionally, while some countries in the region have diplomatic histories that lean towards nonintervention, other countries have long legacies of supporting democratic governance as the only legitimate form.

These two areas can come into conflict as promoting human rights and democracy can mean interfering with the sovereignty of another country. In the 1990s, those looking at the Americas began to ask whether the right to democracy was “beyond sovereignty.” This view was held as the Organization of American States built up the Inter-American Defense of Democracy Regime. The first two Summits of the Americas not only excluded Cuba from the invite list, but laid the groundwork for the central agreement of the Defense of Democracy Regime— the Inter-American Democratic Charter, ratified in Lima in 2001. The Charter not only provides the OAS with tools to defend and promote democracy among member states, but Article 1 highlights the right of the peoples of the Americas to democracy. The long march towards enshrining democracy as a norm within the Americas seemed to have, at long, last been reached. Notably, it also provides mechanisms to suspend membership within the OAS for countries that have an “unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order.”

However, today looks very different from 2001 when the Charter was signed or 1994 when the United States first hosted the Summit of the Americas. Challenges to democratic rule are evident across the region and the utility of the InterAmerican Democratic Charter for addressing democratic ruptures has been questioned. While regional documents have framed democracy as central to membership within the InterAmerican system, the debate over who should be invited to the IX Summit of the Americas highlights a return to the debate over sovereignty and democracy in the Americas. The Biden Administration will have to tread carefully so as to strengthen the norm of democratic governance as central to recognition as a responsible party within the Americas without breaking the Hemispheric unity needed to address the region’s most pressing challenges.

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Emblem of the Flag of the OAS. 32 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

THE UNITED STATES AS PART OF THE AMERICAS MAY 20, 2022

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n the eve of the 2020 election, Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Christy Thornton mused about the similarities between the United States and the other nations of the Americas. Over a year and a half later as the U.S. prepares to host the IX Summit of the Americas for the first time since 1994, I cannot help but think back to this tweet and how similar the U.S. continues to be to the rest of the region. Not only is this due to the similarities in political systems or parallel histories that the United States and Latin America share, but also in terms of the challenges that currently face the region. If the Biden administration is to make the most of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, it is going to need to embrace these similarities and look for common solutions to address the shared challenges faced by all of the nations of the Americas.

The United States and Latin America have histories that in many ways have paralleled one another— countries inhabited by indigenous peoples that were colonized by European powers, legacies of slavery, liberal revolutions and early development of democratic institutions, challenges of state building and internal conflict in the 19th century, and attempts to construct regional orders based on the uniqueness of the Americas. All of these histories, as well as the repeated attempts to create regional organizations that support collective action in the Americas, have created a system in which the U.S. shares many characteristics and an entwined history with the countries in the rest of the Americas.

Noting that there is something unique about the “new world” that binds the different countries of the Americas together is nothing new. Arthur P. Whitaker’s classic, “The Western Hemisphere Idea,” tracked how policy makers across the DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 33

Americas viewed the connections between the United States and Latin America. Similarly, Charles Jones has noted the shared culture of the region. None of this is to minimize the differences in the histories of the different nations of the Americas, but rather to highlight that our commonalities are greater than the differences that divide us. All of these historic legacies have positioned the region today, both in terms of the opportunities facing the Americas as well as the challenges that the region faces.

The legacies of this shared history and tradition have led to a number of problems that are evident across the Americas today. One of the greatest challenges facing the Americas today is declining trust in democracy evident across the region.

Results from the most recent round of the Latin American Public Opinion Project show that support for democracy has continued to decline across the region. This has been coupled with leaders across the region pushing against democratic governance leading to what some have referred to as a “democratic recession.” However, it is not only Latin America that has seen an erosion of support for democracy nor an increase in undemocratic actions. The United States has also seen this occurring in recent years, something that the January 6 insurrection made startlingly clear.

Exacerbating (and being exacerbated by) distrust in democracy is the fact that the Americas were the hardest hit region by the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of the health and economic impacts. In 2020, GDP in the Latin America and Caribbean region fell by 7.0% and in the United States it fell by 3.4% compared to the 3.1% seen globally. While the region saw GDP rebound by 6.8% and the United States grew by 5.7% in 2021, these only remain on par with other parts of the world.

Similarly, as of 5 May 2022, the Americas accounted for 29.9% of COVID-19 cases and 43.6% of deaths despite representing only 13.1% global population. While the U.S. has been able to vaccinate more quickly, many of the challenges that the region has faced in addressing the pandemic are shared by the U.S. The impacts of climate change are also particularly evident across the Americas. With wildfires raging across the western United States and the increasing frequency and severity of major storms, the United States is no stranger to the impacts of climate change here at home. Latin America has also been particularly impacted by climate change. A recent report from the World Bank noted that by 2030 approximately 5.8 million people in Latin America could be pushed into extreme poverty 34 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

due to the climate crisis. Addressing the climate crisis will be no easy feat for any country, particularly given the crossborder impacts of any action across the globe.

The impacts of both the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are highlighting one of the Americas’ other great challenges, both exacerbating and being exacerbated by— inequality. While Latin America has often been referred to as the most unequal region in the world, inequality across the Hemisphere is particularly high. In fact, the United States remains one of the most unequal OECD countries. These inequalities are not purely incidental either, but the result of the historical development of countries in the region. One area where this is particularly evident is in the racial inequalities that are evident across the region. While the United States has been having a reckoning with its own legacies of slavery and racial discrimination, these problems have important parallels in other parts of the region as well.

As the United States prepares to host the IX Summit of the Americas, a meeting of the leaders of the different nations of the Western Hemisphere, many of these items should be on the agenda. Given that the Summit is designed to serve as a platform to collectively discuss the problems facing the Americas and develop collaborative approaches to address them, it represents an opportunity to reframe the relationship between the U.S. and the region. However, as these issues are not unique to Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S. should not seek to lecture or dole out solutions to these challenges.

Rather than taking its traditional paternalistic position, the U.S. should seek to enter the Summit as an equal partner, willing not only to support and engage with the region, but also to learn from the region.

Addressing the challenges that are facing the region will require that the Biden administration embrace the similarities, both in terms of opportunities and challenges, that the United States shares with the region. For too long the U.S. has viewed the challenges across Latin America as distinct from those in the U.S. and clung to U.S. exceptionalism. The Summit of the Americas represents an opportunity to reframe the U.S. as part of the Americas, but only if the Biden administration does not try to fix Latin America’s problems and instead looks both inward and outward to look for opportunities to collectively address the shared crises facing the Americas.

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Photo by Vincentas Liskauskas via Unsplash.

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HOLLYWOOD FOR THE AMERICAS MAY 27, 2022

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rom June 6-10 2022, the United States will host the IX Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California.

This gathering, which will bring together leaders from across the Western Hemisphere along with civil society and other interested parties, may not seem like the standard Hollywood event. Yet connections between Hollywood and the U.S. government to jointly promote U.S.Latin American relations have a long history. Hopefully, a little Hollywood magic can help strengthen Pan-Americanism at the Summit of the Americas.

The U.S. relationship with Latin America has a rocky history.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States was involved in numerous armed conflicts with countries across the region, ranging from the Spanish-American and MexicanAmerican Wars to the occupation of several Central American and Caribbean countries. While many of these actions would be justified by the “Monroe Doctrine” and U.S. efforts to ensure that there were no extra-hemispheric powers in the Western Hemisphere, they left a sense of distrust amid concerns about the United States across the region.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt came into office in 1932, the world was at an important inflection point— the world was still suffering the Great Depression, countries were losing faith in international institutions, and there were growing concerns over illiberal ideologies of Fascism and Communism across the globe. Roosevelt sought to address these multiple crises and threats. One way in which he sought to do this was by recentering the United States within the Western Hemisphere and seeking to improve U.S. relations with Latin America through an approach that would come to be known as the Good Neighbor Policy.

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The Good Neighbor Policy sought to address the economic crisis at home and raise extra-hemispheric influence in Latin America and the Caribbean by promoting and improving relations with Latin America— a notable shift from previous U.S. efforts in the region. To this end, the FDR administration sought to strengthen trade and reduce tariffs with Latin America, repealed the Platt Amendment (an element that gave the United States de facto power in Cuba), and worked with the region to address common challenges rather than solely pushing U.S. interests. All of this ushered in what many consider to be a golden age of U.S.-Latin American relations.

Despite FDR’s efforts to improve relations with Latin America, concerns over the rise of Axis influence in the region continued to grow. In an effort to combat the rise of this influence, the FDR administration established the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) headed by Nelson Rockefeller in 1940. The CIAA was tasked not only with combatting Axis influence in the region, but also with developing a sense of PanAmerican identity within the region and the United States. This included support for a number of different activities ranging from a Pan-American Bazaar in New York City to the sharing of pamphlets and books that highlighted the similarities between the founding fathers of the different nations of the Americas.

While a number of different approaches were taken, one key area was leveraging Hollywood to support the development of Pan-Americanism. These included partnerships between the CIAA and numerous studios and artists with the aim of improving the image of the United States in Latin America as well as the perception of Latin America among the U.S. public.

Not all the attempts to forge a Pan-American identity through Hollywood were successful. In fact, there were many flops where Hollywood mischaracterized Latin American nations.

I think up to now we have all been thinking of the barriers between the Americas: distance and different languages and different backgrounds.

And now, rather suddenly, we see that these things don’t matter. Our backgrounds are different, but our future, we know, has to be the same. The cowboy and the gaucho understand each other because both of them ride the plains as free men, not slaves. And Donald Duck and Joe Carioca will always be friends, I believe, because they’re both grand independent spirits, meant for the pleasure of people who 38 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

are not afraid to laugh… While half of this world is being forced to shout ‘Heil Hitler,’ our answer is to say ‘Saludos Amigos.’ -Walt Disney (1942) One notable success was a partnership between Walt Disney Studios and the CIAA. This included a goodwill tour by Walt Disney and several of his studio artists, the production of two films (“Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros”), the development of educational and health related short films, and other films aimed at promoting a collective identity within the Americas. There are some important lessons, both good and bad, that can be drawn from the Disney-CIAA partnership in developing partnerships between the U.S. government and Hollywood for the promotion of U.S.-Latin American Relations—including the incorporation of regional artists and perspectives, avoiding stereotypes, and creating shared identities amongst characters.

The world is once again at an inflection point— the Americas are experiencing declining support for democracy, war has returned to Europe, the world is trying to recover from the impacts of COVID-19, and the United States is concerned about extra-Hemispheric influence in the Americas. While President Biden has often made comparisons between his own presidency and that of FDR, one area where we have seen little movement is in the development of improved U.S.-Latin American relations. As leaders from across the Americas travel to Hollywood to discuss the challenges facing the Americas and how to collectively address them, the question will be whether the ideals of Pan-Americanism can win out or if differences between the United States and the rest of the Americas are too great to overcome. Perhaps Hollywood can help the Biden administration forge a Pan-American coalition and identity just as it did for FDR. To paraphrase Walt Disney, despite our differences, our future must be the same. Hopefully the city of angels will bring out the best in leaders from across the region to collectively address the problems of today and the future.

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Photo by Fudo Jahic via Unsplash.

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KEEPING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE DREAM ALIVE JUNE 7, 2022

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ven as the IX Summit of the Americas is getting underway in Los Angeles, the postmortem on the process has already started. This gathering of Western Hemispheric leaders was organized under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS) following the first Summit hosted by the United States in Miami in 1994. With the host country being responsible for setting the agenda and establishing the invite list, many hoped that this would represent an opportunity for the Biden administration to improve relations with Latin America and the Caribbean and layout his vision for Hemispheric Affairs. While many of these hopes have been dashed in face of the challenges the Summit faced, there may yet be hope.

Entering the Summit, the Biden administration was beset by a several challenges in articulating a clear vision for the Summit and for regional affairs. From the get-go, the Biden administration was off to a rocky start and postponed the Summit from its initial 2021 date—a move that, while understandable in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and other international challenges, did not bode well as a sign that the region was a priority for the administration.

One could have hoped that the extra time would have meant that the Biden administration would launch an ambitious agenda for the region. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

Many different themes were being discussed for inclusion— particularly in the areas of democracy and governance, pandemic and disaster preparedness, equitable and green economic recovery, and digitalization. While all of these are important themes and will be discussed at the Summit, the DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 41

Biden administration has not articulated a clear foreign policy towards the Americas that discussions at the Summit can advance.

A further complication was the administration’s focus on and ensuing debates about whether non-democratic governments should be invited to the Summit. Given that the region has often pushed for the United States to include all members of the region regardless of political system, it should not have been a surprise when countries protested the news of the potential exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the Summit— yet, it seems to have come as a surprise all the same. Much of the news in the lead-up to the Summit focused on this issue and less than one week from the Summit White House officials said they were still determining the final invite list. One leading U.S.-Latin American watcher, Eric Farnsworth, bemoaned the lack of substance going into the Summit and noted that debates over who would be invited made it feel more like “junior high.”

All of this has led others to highlight that the Summits have a long-running central problem—they combine very different countries with different interests and problems. This has led to some calling on a recalibration of U.S. policy towards the region.

Likewise, Dan Restrepo, one of the Obama administration’s Latin American experts, has questioned the utility of the Summits of the Americas in favor of mini-lateral Summits with different sub-regions of the Americas. Restrepo is right in highlighting the differences across the region and the need for the United States to do more than a once-every three-year Summit devoted to the Americas. The United States has often turned towards mini-lateral approaches to the region when Pan-American mechanisms do not materialize. For instance, with talks about a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas failing, Washington pushed for a network of smaller trade deals—leading to the “spaghetti bowl” of trade agreements that we see in the region today. Discounting the Summit and Pan-American mechanisms is troubling. This can lead to a situation in which an increasing number of overlapping—both in terms of mandates and membership—regional organizations exist, limiting the effectiveness of any of them.

While much of the focus on the challenges facing the Summit comes from assessments of how the United States has engaged with the region, the Summit also failed to drum up much domestic interest in the region. Previous U.S. attempts to improve Inter-American relations, such as the Alliance for 42 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

Progress and the Good Neighbor Policy, not only focused on U.S. foreign policy, but on ensuring domestic interest and support for these initiatives. While president Biden’s special advisors on the Summit did travel around the country discussing the Summits process, these were relatively limited compared to past examples that included coordinating with Hollywood and creating business associations specifically interested in promoting Inter-American cooperation. Only by building domestic support can meaningful policy changes toward the region occur.

Using the IX Summit to address all the problems facing the region and reset Inter-American affairs in the face of these challenges was never a realistic possibility. Yet despite these challenges, it may yet be a starting point for refocusing attention on the region. If the Summit is to serve as a starting point for improving U.S.-Hemispheric relations, it is critical that the Biden administration take the necessary steps now. Important meetings were held in the lead up to the Summit. However, these seemed just as focused on ensuring participation from the region as it did to listening to the challenges the region faces. These meetings should occur more frequently—and the United States needs to find ways to ensure that relations continue to be built progressively rather than seeking a “reset” every few years. While one of Biden’s special advisors on the Summit assured an audience that there were mechanisms in place, more needs to be done to ensure follow through.

Importantly, this includes making sure that U.S. embassies in the region have ambassadors to represent the United States. It also requires setting a strategy that actively seeks to engage the region beyond just the Summit.

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IMPLICATIONS

OF THE IX SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS

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ow that the IX Summit of the Americas has come and gone, we can reflect on some of the Summit’s outcomes—and what we can learn from it. The Biden administration had an opportunity to engage with shared regional problems and help restore hemispheric relations. While important agreements and announcements were made in some areas during the IX Summit, much of this was overshadowed by debates about the utility of the Summits and the decline of regional cooperation. Despite these distractions, important agreements were reached. These included agreements in areas of democracy, pandemic and disaster recovery, sustainable growth, and migration—a area that is of critical importance to the region. While the Summit may not have lived up to what many hope for, these remain important.

There are three key ways we should assess the IX Summit and its impact on Inter-American affairs—from the perspective of U.S. engagement with the region, from the standpoint of Hemispheric cooperation, and how agreements that have been reached are enacted and followed through. Far from an optimistic view of the Summit’s outcomes, examination of these three dimensions highlights the challenges that persist across the Americas.

U.S. ENGAGEMENT WITH THE AMERICAS With the United States hosting the Summit and Biden’s own history of working with Latin America, there was optimism that the Summit could be an opportunity for the U.S. to reset relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. However, conflict between the U.S. and countries in the region over who should be invited to the Summit eroded that opportunity. This controversy sucked up energy that could have been focused on improving Inter-American relations or framing a U.S. foreign policy agenda for the region.

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Despite these challenges, the Summit provided the United States with a platform to engage with the region and the Biden administration seized the moment to launch a number of initiatives over the course of the week. These initiatives included the announcement of a Cities Summits of the Americas, a Climate Crisis Partnership with the Caribbean, the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, and different investment and aid initiatives aimed at the Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These initiatives address important issues impacting the region.

The Cities Summit of the Americas, scheduled for April 2023 in Denver, is an opportunity to sidestep some of the broader geopolitical questions that plagued the IX Summit and bring together city officials to address some of the region’s most pressing challenges. This type of paradiplomacy can empower deeper connections across the region and innovative policy solutions. Likewise, the increased engagement with the Caribbean on climate change represents an important opportunity to deepen the relationship between the United States and the region. However, while efforts to address the root causes of migration are laudable, none of the leaders of the Northern Triangle attended the Summit.

While these are all important initiatives, they have been criticized for being flashy but vague. Additionally, while these are important announcements, the fact that the Biden administration chose to launch all these initiatives during the same week strengthens the perception that Latin America and the Caribbean are not a priority for the United States, but rather an afterthought that is only addressed when politically expedient—such as during the Summit. Although the Biden administration made inroads with several leaders—emphasizing that the United States was there to listen rather than lecture the region—for the U.S. to holistically improve relations with the region it must engage more regularly between Summits.

THE STATE OF HEMISPHERIC COOPERATION The IX Summit highlighted important fissures between the nations of the Americas. While this is clear from the divides over who should be invited to the Summit, there are several areas where it is evident that Hemispheric cooperation has weakened. This has important ramifications for governance within the Inter-American system.

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Debates about which countries and what characteristics make up membership of the region are long-standing. At the Summit, this emerged again and can be summed up in Belize’s prime minister, John Briceño’s comment that “Geography, not politics, defines the Americas.” However, countries of the Americas have long sought to use ideas to bind them together—particularly in support of human rights, sovereignty, and democracy. The continued debate on this highlights the desire for a unified Americas, but also a fracturing commitment to collectively protecting and defending human rights and democracy as central to the Inter-American system.

For instance, despite all countries in the region—with the exception of Cuba—having signed on to the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the push to include countries lacking democratic credentials was evident. Likewise, there has been a hesitancy within the Americas to use the collective mechanisms developed to address human rights abuses and weakening democratic norms. Without supporting the shared systems that have been created and doing so collectively, these forums and mechanisms will lose legitimacy.

At the same time, countries are turning toward other forums for regional governance that will likely face problems mirroring those in the Inter-American system. This process of creating and using alternative regional groupings rather than addressing the underlying challenges in the Inter-American system limits regional cooperation and weakens all regional institutions. Thus, governments from across the region need to work to address underlying challenges within the Inter-American system and recognize that both ideals and geography have historically helped shape cooperation within the region. Turning back to these ideals is necessary for ensuring a prosperous Western Hemisphere.

THE NEED TO FOLLOW THROUGH The first time that the Summit of the Americas was held, it was also hosted by the United States. Grand deals were struck and visions of Hemispheric cooperation appeared to be a possibility— the so-called “Spirit of Miami” left many believing that a corner had been turned in U.S.-Latin American relations and a shared vision to address the ills of the Americas was at last possible.

However, despite grand pronouncements and optimism, many of the outcomes of the first Summit remain unrealized.

Subsequent Summits of the Americas have been plagued by 46 | IX SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

a similar problem—a lack of follow through on implementing pronouncements. While there have been a number of important breakthroughs as a result of the different Summits— including the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Lima Commitment of Democratic Governance Against Corruption— their ideals are not lived up to. Instead, since the passage of the Democratic Charter, we have seen new and evolving threats to democracy that have not been collectively addressed.

Similarly, since the Lima Convention, two important collective responses to combat corruption—International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH)—have been shut down.

For the Summits to be truly successful, governments must live up to the commitments and grand pronouncements they made. Developing responsive mechanisms and binding commitments is difficult, but is necessary to strengthening the Inter-American system. The challenges that face the Americas are shared and collective action is needed to address them, but only if concrete actions are taken to address these challenges.

Continued engagement across the region and strengthening Inter-American mechanisms and Pan-American Ideals will be necessary to improve the lives of the citizens of the Americas.

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