The Institute of International Studies (IIS) of the University of Chile was founded in 1966 by professor Claudio Véliz, with the cooperation of the Royal Institute of International Affairs of London. The IIS has been affected by the changes that have occurred in both the domestic and international contexts, but, despite some temporary crises, the Institute has been able to maintain the generally high level of scholarship and objectivity that typically characterized it. Today, the IIS is a research and teaching center in the field of international relations, covering the political, juridical, economic, social and historical dimensions.

It has become rather common to say that the economic importance of Latin America for the United States has declined sharply, mainly owing to the fact that the region's relative position in the external trade of the United States has deteriorated progressively. While the figures do indeed reveal that the region now plays a lesser role in U.S. foreign commerce than it did some decades ago, it would be grossly misleading to assume that the overall economic importance of Latin America for the United States and other core powers also has declined. Economic relations between the Latin American periphery and the United States should not be analyzed merely in quantitative terms, on a bilateral basis, and only at certain points in time. It is necessary to shift attention to the structural level, to verify, for example, whether this decrease in the Latin American share of world trade necessarily implies a breakdown of the bonds that have existed historically between core and periphery economies.

In his insightful book On the Law of Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan states that international law “is not higher law or better law; it is existing law. It is not a law that eschews force; such a view is alien to the very idea of law. Often as not it is the law of the victor; but it is law withal and does evolve” (Moynihan 1990, 19).