Luis María Drago

Luis María Drago (Mercedes, Buenos Aires; May 6, 1859-City of Buenos Aires, June 9, 1921) was an Argentine lawyer and politician, author of the Drago Doctrine.

Biography

He was born in the city of Buenos Aires, a member of a family of Spanish descent and a good economic and social position. He completed his secondary studies at the National College of Buenos Aires.He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires in 1882. He worked as a journalist in various newspapers, including La Nación, of which he became its editor. He held several public positions: Civil judge, counselor of the provincial Court of Appeals and attorney general of Buenos Aires. During his time serving in the courts, he expressed a deep interest in the sociological and psychological factors that influenced criminals.

In 1888, at the initiative of Luis María Drago (State Attorney for the Province of Buenos Aires), the Legal Anthropology Society was created, constituted by Norberto Piñero, Francisco Ramos Mejía (president), José María Ramos Mejía, Luis María Drago, Rodolfo Rivarola, Manuel Podesta, Lucio Menéndez (director of the Las Mercedes Hospice) and Florentino Ameghino, among others, all belonging to the so-called '80s generation'. The Society was created for the purpose of studying crime. He had intense academic activity dedicated to promoting the Positive School. The inaugural conference was given by Francisco Ramos Mejía, and was titled: “Crime, the criminal, responsibility, punishment and the right to punish in the fundamental principles of the Positive School of Criminal Law.”

He was a legislator for the PAN (National Autonomist Party) and a law professor.

He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1902, during the government of Julio Argentino Roca. During his stay in the Foreign Ministry, he proposed the Drago Doctrine in response to the war actions of England, Germany and Italy, who imposed the naval blockade. to Venezuela from 1902-1903, to collect by force the large national debt that President Cipriano Castro refused to pay.

Given this circumstance, President Theodore Roosevelt argued that the United States as a country would not apply the Monroe Doctrine for the purposes of supporting an American country that was affected by attacks from European powers that did not originate with the intention of recovering territories and colonize them. This is how the Drago Doctrine emerged, as a protest by Luis María Drago against the passive attitude of the United States to resolve said conflict, establishing that no foreign State can use force against an American nation in order to collect a financial debt.. In 1908 he received instructions from his government to represent the country at the Second Peace Conference in The Hague alongside Roque Sáenz Peña; There they held a favorable position for the creation of an international arbitration court.