Zitierhinweis
Pérez Goday, Fernando: Rezension über: Bruno Polack, El último virrey del Perú. Patricio Lynch y la ocupación chilena durante la Guerra del Pacífico, Santiago: Planeta, 2017, in: Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History, 26 (2018), S. 478-480, DOI: 10.12946/rg26/478-480, heruntergeladen über recensio.net
First published: http://rg.rg.mpg.de/en/article_id/1225
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orden social y político durante un período que ha ambos lados del Atlántico, presta relativamente sufrido el abandono de los historiadores de Amé- poca atención a la larga y compleja historia del rica Latina y el mundo atlántico. La atención del concepto »nación« y su uso en la configuración de libro por las violentas tensiones entre las élites las identidades tanto imperiales como regionales o regionales resulta ser de gran importancia también locales. El trabajo podría haberse beneficiado de para comprender la notable diferencia entre el una exploración conceptual más amplia que va más separatismo brasileño, que siguió siendo monár- allá de la fórmula legal de »Una sola nación«, lo quico y dinástico, y el de los Estados hispanoame- que habría agregado una mayor profundidad his- ricanos. Valdría la pena explorar más a fondo el tórica a sus reflexiones en el capítulo 10 sobre la argumento de Hamnett sobre porqué las experien- transformación de este concepto en el proceso de cias violentas en una región, influyeron en las formación política de las naciones. A pesar de esta estrategias políticas adoptadas por las élites en otras observación, The End of Iberian Rule es un libro partes del imperio. Tales exploraciones podrían relevante para cualquier persona interesada en la agregar una nueva dimensión a lo que ya sabemos era de las independencias. La familiaridad de sobre las transferencias constitucionales y legales Hamnett con una impresionante cantidad de fuen- »transnacionales« que ocurrieron durante la era de tes primarias y secundarias y su alcance amplio y la independencia. comparativo indudablemente hacen de este estu- Una última observación sobre el marco concep- dio un trabajo imprescindible tanto para especia- tual que Hamnett ha elegido. Aunque hace un listas como para estudiantes. buen trabajo al comparar y vincular situaciones en n
Fernando Pérez Godoy Chilean Occupation of Lima under International Law*
From the perspective of legal history, Bruno region, the unplanned occupation of Lima became Polack’s monograph analyses the government of a problem, but it was also necessary to conclude a Patricio Lynch as Supreme Military and Political favourable peace treaty (164). Polack’s book focus- Commandant of Peru from 1882 to 1883 – the es on Chilean and Peruvian legislation as well as final phase of the War of the Pacific between Chile the juridical innovations that the history of Peru- and the Bolivian-Peruvian alliance (1879–1884). vian law has omitted, above all in the field of The construction of a ›legal façade‹ for the Chilean judicial administration. occupation of Lima was a complex process of Polack’s publication is interesting because it clashing and entangled normativities. Lynch’s ad- helps to elucidate the effects of European treaties ministration tried to adjust to 19th-century interna- on international law in non-European legal spaces tional law by building a temporal juridical setting, and warlike contexts outside of the normative which was required by Chileans, Peruvians and order of the civilised nations (Europe, North Amer- foreigners living in the occupied territory (43). ica) in 19th century. Les lois relatives à la guerre selon Once Chile gained Bolivia’s nitrate-rich coastal le droit des gens moderne (Paris, 1872) written by the
*B P, El último virrey del Perú. Patricio Lynch y la ocupación chilena durante la Guerra del Pacífi- co, Santiago: Planeta 2017, 206 p., ISBN 978-956-360-393-4
478 Chilean Occupation of Lima under International Law Kritik critique
French jurist Achille Morin provides a case in point civilidad – with a juridical setting (44). Although – one that Lynch and his legal team in Peru did in suggestive, this claim needs to be contextualised, fact use. The history of norms derived from the ius which Polack achieves by surveying the difficult publicum europeaum crossing the Atlantic is cur- political institutional landscape of post-war Peru. rently a vibrant topic. To overcome tired views on The flight of the usurper Piérola disrupted public the reception of European literature in peripheral order and le the Peruvian state headless. As a spaces, works such as El Ultimo Virrey del Peru are result, Chile could not negotiate a peace agree- invaluable to study the process of how European ment, and the Supreme Court in Lima refused to legal knowledge, in this case international law, was fulfil its duties. In consequence, first General Ba- appropriated, translated and domesticated in local quedano and later General Lynch imposed martial spaces like Chilean-occupied Lima. Further, Po- law and military courts (53), which is the starting lack’s study invites the reader to rethink arguments point of the administration of Chilean justice in of the imperial and historical turns in international Lima. legal scholarship in the South American legal In Polack’s eyes, the foreign administration of space. Whereas internationalists like Koskenniemi, justice is the saddest and least-studied topic in the Angie, Orford, Nuzzo, and Third World Ap- history of Peruvian law, because Lynch and his proaches to International Law (TWAIL) see the legal assessor, Carrasco Albano, created a legal use of international law by the European colonial system for the administration of justice and court powers against the Third World as arbitrary, it is procedure to promote the interests of the Chilean equally likely that South American states employed occupation (65). Thus, Lynch’s decree of 6 Novem- the corpus of ius gentium europeaum to justify their ber 1881 is, for Polack, the cornerstone of Peruvian expansionist claims during 19th century. How was legal life. The first instance in the hierarchy were the conceptual toolbox of international law repur- the justices of the peace, the Chilean military court posed in military conflicts in local, non-western in Lima was the second, and the Supreme Military spaces in 19th century? Can European legal history and Political Commandant was responsible for the omit that dark chapter? rest of the occupied territory. Errors and omissions The Chilean jurists’ employment of Morin’s in praxis iuris appeared before long, and Lynch had work in formulating the occupation’s decrees of to promulgate a second Decree of Judicial Admin- 1881 is perhaps most amenable to the imperial istration on 24 April 1882, which supplemented turn in the history of international law. Interna- the first text and introduced justices of the peace tional law neither regulated nor humanised the into civil and commercial matters as well as crim- wartime conduct of the Chilean army according to inal court judges in penal matters. The establish- the modern customs of the civilised nations in an ment of lower courts in Lima and Callao were also occupied territory. Rather, Lynch’s administration Chilean legal innovations. Lynch himself was the used the international legal discourse to protect the supreme instance for settling lawsuits in tax mat- economic interests of the military occupation. One ters, which were important because the tax surplus of the most widely discussed means Lynch used financed the occupation and serviced the Chilean was the obligatory payment of cupos de Guerra, public treasury (74). which was levied in several Peruvian cities to Lynch’s decrees also introduce arbitration into sustain the war economy and to stock the Chilean criminal and civil proceedings, which Peruvian treasury. Polack estimates that this tax raised 30 000 Civil Code of 1852 had already included. Arbitra- pounds sterling (33). How the war, the occupation tion was used to settle all kinds of matters, though and the interventions into property rights were it was excluded from cases of expropriation and legitimised constitute Polack’s central problemati- land ownership with the goal of benefitting the que, and their analysis is necessary if we are to Chilean owners in Peruvian territory (91). Another reveal the true nature of international law in the new legal feature was legally binding concilia- 19th century. tion as the initial phase of dispute resolution. Com- As the author explains in his analysis of Lynch’s mon-law relationships were also part of art. 28 of memories and decrees from 1882 to 1884, the Lynch’s decree, which was not integrated into Chilean general sought to soen the occupation’s Peruvian legislation until 1984. Finally, the acqui- strictly military character, instead giving the Chil- sition of possession was also reconceptualised by ean occupation a halo of civilisation – halo de Chile’s legal team. Polack explains that Lynch’s
Fernando Pérez Godoy 479 Rg 26 2018
new decree legally avoided any kind of reposses- may impose not only martial law, but also penal sion by owners against the Chilean army in the and criminal legislation with the goal of protecting occupied territory. The author thus concludes that the civilians from violations by the invading army Lynch’s sentido jurídico utilitario – utilitarian legal (126–127). A key argument for Polack was the logic (97) – shied the use of public and private legitimation that Lynch found in the opinions of real estate in favour of the occupying forces. Morin, Bluntschli and Vattel about the rights For Polack these legal innovations derived legit- owned by the belligerent state aer occupying an imation from 19th-century laws of war, and Chile’s enemy country. Lynch sought to secure the terri- diplomatic success depended on adhering to this tories rich in guano and saltpetre belonging to normativity by signing a beneficial peace treaty Tarapaca from future protests by Bolivia and Peru. with cession of territory. The norms and interna- According to Bluntschli, conquering a foreign tional customs of civilised nations were taken from territory can only give the victorious state tempo- Morin’s work, a handbook that served as the rary rights, but not permanent rights, including principal guide to the opinions of Emer de Vattel property rights. This is because occupation is a and Johann Caspar Bluntschli. Polack quoted im- violent action, not a legal one. But like Morin portant passages from the handbooks of these and von Martens, Bluntschli also stated that a Swiss jurists, although he fails to specify the trans- long-term occupation, as was the case with Chile, lations used. The author errs in affirming that the could accord lawful property rights to occupying works of Vattel and Bluntschli belong to the same army. Hence, Polack concludes that Bluntschli’s epoch. While Le droit de Gens appeared in 1757 doctrine, which Lynch knew through reading (Neuchâtel), Das moderne Völkerrecht der Civilisirten Morin’s treatise, became an intellectual touchstone Staaten was published in 1869. A Spanish trans- of Chilean legislation in the attempt to suspend the lation of the first handbook was published in 1820 Peruvian legal order and to create an advantageous in Madrid; Dr. Díaz Covarrubias translated Blunts- juridical system (132). Of further interest, other chli in 1871 in Mexico (114). Despite this omission, jurists, like A.G. Heffter, whom Morin quotes, it should be emphasised that those texts of Euro- negates the property rights of the occupying army. pean international law were employed to justify Heffter’s opinion was no less important than the- the deeds of the Chilean army. Lynch tried to ories of Martens and Vattel, but, as Pollack ex- consolidate the conquest through the international plains, this German lawyer did not convene to law, positing the war and occupation waged by Lynch’s utilitarian legal sense. In summary, the Chile as a »civilizing practice« (116). strategic use of these European internationalists Morin’s text was advantageous because it in- as well as the implementation of the Lieber Code, cluded clear rules on the treatment of enemies, and the Conventions of Geneva (1864), Brussels injured solders, military interactions with the civil- (1874) and Saint Petersburg (1878) during the ian population and the protection of private prop- Saltpetre War evidences less a universalisation of erty, so that the occupation succumbed neither to international law than the existence of regional licentiousness nor dishonour – libertinaje ni deshon- normative orders that clearly exemplify the multi- ra – in other words, avoiding »barbarian uses« that ple and insufficiently researched »histories« of could have damaged the Chilean image abroad. international law of the 19th century (H. Steiger).1 From the principles of Morin, von Martens, Schmalz and even Hegel, Polack concludes that the commander-in-chief in occupied territories n
1 H S, Das Ius Publicum schichte(n): Historische Narrative Europaeum und das Andere: a global und Konzepte im Wandel. Berlin: history approach, in: A Duncker & Humblot, 2017. A (ed.), Völkerrechtsge-
480 Chilean Occupation of Lima under International Law