The Nobel Prize Alfonso García Robles

Now in our section, we are so proud to present one of the most important diplomats in Mexico and Nobel Prize Garcia Robles. The following article is just an outline about an outstanding background on diplomacy.

Alfonso Garcia Robles was born in Zamora, Michoacán, and trained in law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Institute of Higher International Studies in Paris, France and the Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands before joining his country's foreign service in 1939.

In 1939 he joined the Mexican Foreign Service, beginning his diplomatic career in Mexican representation in Sweden. He was transferred to Mexico in 1941 to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), where he remained for five years as Deputy Director of Political Affairs and the Diplomatic Service. As the representative of Mexico participated in a series of international meetings that laid the legal basis for what in 1945 would become the United Nations. Throughout his diplomatic career Alfonso García Robles worked actively on issues related to disarmament, negotiations that concluded in the Treaty of 1967 for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, better known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

He served as a delegate to the 1945 San Francisco Conference that established the United Nations. He was ambassador to Brazil from 1962 to 1964 and was state secretary to the ministry of foreign affairs from 1964 to 1970. In 1971–75 he served as his country's representative to the United Nations before an appointment as foreign minister in 1975–76. He was then appointed as Mexico's permanent representative to the Committee on Disarmament of the UN.

In October 1982 he won the Nobel Peace Prize, a distinction he shared with Swedish diplomat and writer Alva Myrdal, who had accompanied him in many of the international disarmament negotiations. In his acceptance speech he quoted Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, who in 1955 declared "not as a member of this or such nation, continent or creed, but as human beings, members of the human species whose future existence is in doubt, we must learn to think in a new way ".

His name was inscribed on the Wall of Honor of the Legislative Palace, Mexico's House of Representatives' building, in 2003.

Finally, I want to emphasize that along his career path, Garcia Robles has impacted in many people’s lives for example with academic benefits to students, researchers and teachers Mexicans and Americans to carry out postgraduate studies, research stays, teaching and professional programs in the United States and Mexico through Fulbright-Garcia Robles organization better known as COMEXUS.

As you can see and thanks to professionals like Garcia Robles with a diplomatic vision in the common good between nations, can be reached two-sided benefits through agreements on diplomatic cooperation.