was considered an attempt to curb abusive political or military European government interference in Latin American states. In the late 1860s European powers were expanding their businesses overseas and required a minimum international standard of protection for their citizens and goods. On the other hand, Latin American states that had become recently independent on many occasions found themselves unable to comply with their financial obligations and hence had to cope with European aggression in their territories.

The Calvo Doctrine tried to stop what Latin American states considered an assault on the sovereignty, independence and equality of states and on nationals by aliens. As Calvo stated in his original work ‘aliens were not entitle to a higher degree of protection than domestic creditors and therefore, foreign citizens had to submit their claims to local courts’. The doctrine was further perfected in the French edition of his ‘Derecho Internacional Teorico y Practico’ setting forth the following tenets: (1) equality, sovereignty and independence of governments are paramount rights of the States; (2) States, being equal, sovereign and independent, have the right to expect non-interference from other States; and finally (3) aliens have to abide by the local law of the state wherein they reside without invoking diplomatic protection of their governments in the prosecution of claims arising out of contracts, insurrection, civil war or mob violence’.

The Calvo Doctrine gained several adversaries in Europe. European states viewed this theory as a limitation to their diplomatic rights and distrusted that justice could be achieved towards their subjects in Latin America. On the other hand, Calvo’s ideas won many adherents in Latin American countries, which began to incorporate his ideas and concepts into their constitutions, domestic legislation and international agreements.

The career of Carlos Calvo was recognized internationally. Calvo was the only Latin American founder of the l'Institut de Droit International (Belgium). He was a member of the Political and Moral Sciences Assembly of the Royal Academy of History of Madrid and one of the few Americans members of the Institut de France along with Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, among other renowned personalities. He died in 1906 in France and his remains were later repatriated to the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina.