Biography of Alfonso García Robles | Mexican jurist and diplomat.

(Zamora, Michoacán, 1911 - city of Mexico, 1991) Mexican jurist and diplomat. Undoubtedly one of the specialists in law and international politics of his country, is among lawyers and diplomats who contributed to the founding of the UN and the enactment in 1945 the Charter of Nations. For the intense activity that deployed throughout his career towards the denuclearization and disarmament, Nobel Peace Prize awarded in 1982.

Born into a family of merchants, Alfonso García Robles received his secondary education in Guadalajara. He attended college in the city of Mexico, where he obtained Bachelor of law at the National University. His interest in international law would lead him to complete his studies in Europe. In 1936 he won the special award for the thesis that took place at the Institute of international studies at the University of Paris. It continued to expand studies in the Netherlands, where in 1938 he received the diploma of the Academy of international law in the Hague.

Alfonso García Robles

Back to his country in 1939, he joined the Mexican diplomacy, and in October of the same year he was sent to Stockholm as third Secretary to the legation in Mexico. In 1941 he was appointed to the Secretariat of foreign relations of Mexico, where over five years remained as Deputy Director of political affairs of the foreign service. With the office of Secretary of International Affairs of the National Committee of planning for peace, corresponded to García Robles participate in a series of international meetings aimed at the legal foundations of what in 1945, after the second world war, became the United Nations, the Organization of the United Nations.

In the first decade of operation of the United Nations, it dealt with monitoring international political affairs, processes of pacification of conflicts and relations between the world Organization and regional bodies. He was the representative of the UN at the Bogota Conference (1948), which punished the OAS Charter. During this stage in New York met a Peruvian girl, an official of the UN, with which shared affinities: Juana María Szyszlo, with whom he married in 1950 and which would have two children.

In 1957, the Mexican Government did return to Garcia Robles to his country so he is reinstated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as director in Chief of affairs of Europe, Asia, Africa and international agencies. García Robles was the Ambassador of Mexico in Brazil between 1961 and 1964, and took charge of the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs in 1970. During this second period he addressed multilateral issues such as the work on disarmament which developed in the United Nations and headed the delegation in the Committee on disarmament. He also chaired the meetings for the denuclearization of Latin America held in Mexico from 1964, which culminated with the signing of the Treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Latin America (1967), known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

During the year 1975, the Mexican Government called again to García Robles to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs; Nonetheless he would abandon their responsibilities in the international body. Since January 1977, as the representative of Mexico at the UN, he participated to the United Nations Disarmament Committee in Geneva. The experience had accumulated earned him that he was considered the Dean of diplomats specialized in disarmament and, in 1978, his record said the agreement at the first General Assembly of the UN on disarmament.

Emeritus Ambassador in 1981, his career was crowned in 1982 when the Norwegian Parliament decided to award, shared with the Swedish sociologist Alva Myrdal, the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work for international disarmament. Throughout his career he gave printing numerous works on diplomatic and geopolitical issues, such as the Pan-Americanism and the policy of good-neighbourliness (1938), Of of the Atlantic Charter Conference in San Francisco (2 vols. 1949), the denuclearization of Latin America (1967), El Tratado de Tlatelolco (1967) and The General Assembly on disarmament (1979).

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas