Dissident Voices 277ciple of nonintervention. In the pluralist spirit of positivism, he insisted on
the right of each state to fi x its own standard of treatment as it chose. For-
eign visitors simply had to accept that standard when they entered. As a re-
sult, a foreigner could not be said to be mistreated if he were simply treated
on a par with nationals in the state where he found himself. Only if he was
discriminated against on the basis of being foreign could there be said to be
any mistreatment in the eyes of international law. Th is came to be known in
international law as the Calvo Doctrine. It received notably strong support
from Latin American countries, whose governments were fearful (with good
reason) of intervention by developed states into their internal aff airs.
Th e Calvo Doctrine did not remain merely a doctrine. Th ere was also a
concerted attempt to implement it in practice by means of legal provisions
that came to be known, fi ttingly enough, as Calvo Clauses. Th ese were
provisions— whether of state constitutions or legislation or of contracts—
that sought to bar foreign- state intervention on behalf of foreign nationals
from the outset. Th e 1881 constitution of Venezuela, for example, contained
a general prohibition against “appeal to diplomatic intervention” by foreign-
ers (unless expressly allowed by law or treaties). Similar in spirit was a
provision of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, allowing foreigners to own
land or extract subsoil minerals only if they agree “to be considered as
Mexicans in respect to such property and, accordingly, not to invoke the
protection of their own Governments.”
Th e validity of Calvo Clauses in international law became a matter of some
considerable dispute. Against their validity, it was contended that the right of
states to bring claims on behalf of their nationals for injuries infl icted by
foreign governments is an inherent right of the alien’s home state. Any pur-
ported waiver entered into by the alien himself cannot prejudice that inher-
ent right of his state. It is an interesting comment on the state of develop-
ment of international law that this dispute has not been defi nitively resolved
to the present day.
Limits to Liberalism
As impressive as some of the liberal innovations in international law were in
the nineteenth century, it must be acknowledged that there were also some
signifi cant limitations to its impact. Th e Tobar Doctrine, for example, never