The movement towards economic, military, political, and social cooperation among the 21 republics of South, Central,and North America. The first Pan-American conference was held in 1889 in Washington, DC, to encourage inter-American trade as well as the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region. The seventh conference (Montevideo 1933) was important because the USA, in harmony with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbor’ policy, finally adopted the long-espoused Latin American principle of non-intervention, while the conference at Buenos Aires in 1936 adopted a treaty for the peaceful resolution of conflicts between American states. The Conference at Chapultepec (1945) agreed on a united defence policy for the signatory nations. At the conference held in Bogotá in 1948, the Organization of American States (OAS) was established, transforming the Pan-American system into a formal regional organization within the framework of the United Nations.