UN General Assembly
1974

100. As integral members of the Latin American community we are bound to express our satisfaction that a noble nation, albeit far removed from Latin America, has ensured the study by this Assembly of a legal political institution which was inherited from our own motherland, Spain, and which is typically Latin American. I refer to the item on diplomatic asylum, included in the agenda Of this session at Australia's request [see A19704]. Diplomatic asylum is but a humanitarian rule to give shelter to those who are persecuted for political and not criminal reasons. In Latin America asylum in diplomatic missions has been an unbroken tradition maintained by almost every Government at all times, even when there was no obligation to provide political asylum. Argentina signed the initial multilateral treaty at the Latin American level in Montevideo in 1880s and has had the opportunity of applying its generous principles not only in America but in other hemispheres.