Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Sánchez de Bustamante and the second or maternal family name is Sirven.

Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven (13 April 1865 – 24 August 1951) was a Cuban lawyer, educator, politician and international jurist. He promoted the existence of a common American regulation for private international law. For this reason, the sixth Pan-American Congress took place in Cuba in 1928, in the final document, the Treaty of Havana is attached in the annex of the Code of Private International Law.

Antonio Sanchez de Bustamante Sirven
Taken about 1922 in his robes as justice of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague.
Born	(1865-04-13)13 April 1865 Havana, Spanish Cuba
Died	24 August 1951(1951-08-24) (aged 86) Havana, Cuba
Nationality	Cuban
Education	Colegio de Belén University of Havana University of Madrid
Alma mater	University of Havana (DPhil), 1884 Instituto Cardenal Cisneros Philosophy career
Era	?
Region	?
Thesis	Derecho Internacional Público (International Law) (1937)
Doctoral advisor	?
Other academic advisors	?
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Occupations	Lawyer jurist politician
Years active	1885–1951
Employer	Permanent Court of Arbitration
Known for	Bustamante Code
Title	President of the Central Board of Charities Professor of Public and Private Law in the University of Havana, 1908 Founder of the Cuban Association of International Law Founder- and vice-president of the International Academy of International and Comparative Law, 1923 First president of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, 1942-1951 President of the Cuban Academy of the Spanish Language, 1942-1951
Spouse	Isabel Pulido Pages ​ ​ (m. 1885; died 1951)​
Children	3
Parents	Juan Manuel Sánchez de Bustamante y García del Barrio Dolores Sirvén y Borras
Awards

He was appointed in 1908 member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague and in 1921 he was appointed judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice established by the League of Nations. He was also the first president of the National Academy of Arts and Letters of Cuba.

Life and career

Early life and education

Antonio Sanchez de Bustamante was born in Havana, Cuba on 13 April 1865. Bustamante married Isabel Pulido Pages, the daughter of a prominent Havana physician, in 1885. They had three sons, Gustavo and Antonio Arturo Sánchez de Bustamante Pulido, both prominent attorneys, and a third son, Dario, who died while still a law student. One of Bustamante's grandsons, Antonio Sanchez de Bustamante Montoro, was also a lawyer and a professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Havana. Bustamante's law firm was located at Calle Aguacate #502 in Old Havana since 1884. For almost a century represented powerful business interests in Cuba. He completed his elementary and secondary studies in Colegio de Belén of the Society of Jesus in Havana, and in the Instituto Cardenal Cisneros in Madrid. His father, Juan Manuel Sánchez de Bustamante y García del Barrio, was a physician in Havana and professor of descriptive anatomy at the University of Havana. Bustamante started his studies of law at the Central University of Madrid while his father served as senator in the Spanish Cortes. Bustamante returned to Cuba and completed his degree of licentiate of civil and canon law at the University of Havana in 1884. A year later he completed a doctoral dissertation about the historical evolution of the Council of State at the University of Havana.

Law professor

Bustamante competed for and obtained the chair of Public and Private International Law of the University of Havana in 1891. He held that chair until his June 1951, confirmed by the U.S. Governor in 1899 and by the Cuban Republic after 1902.

Politician

He served in the Cuban Senate representing in different terms the provinces of Pinar del Río and Havana from 1902 to 1916. From that position, Bustamante chaired in several congressional periods the Senate Committee on Justice and Codes, and was a member of the Committee of Foreign Relations. He was the author of the first Cuban law regulating the procedures of constitutional judicial review passed by Congress in 1903 and in force until 1949, with amendments in 1922 and 1935. Bustamante supported progressive bills of the time like the divorce bill of 1914.

Leader of the Havana lawyers

From 1913 through 1923, Bustamante was the dean of the Havana Bar Association. From that position he organized the first National Legal Conference in December 1916. The conference was designed to promote the revision and update of the entire legal system, replacing the Spanish laws by modern legislation that responded to Cuban realities.

National and international academies

Bustamante was the first president of the National Academy of Arts and Letters established by the Cuban republic in 1910. He was also one of the founding members of the Cuban Academy of the Spanish Language. From 1942 until his death in 1951 he was the President of it. Bustamante was also the founder and president of the Cuban Association of International Law, and founder, vice-president and President of the International Academy of International and Comparative Law of The Hague.

Constitutional Convention of 1928

In 1928, he presided over the Constitutional Convention that amended the Constitution of 1901 and permitted President Gerardo Machado to serve a second term in office without elections. Although the political opposition to Machado and to the constitutional reform of 1928 was limited before 1930, after Machado was overthrown in August 1933, Bustamante was subject to a political trial by revolutionary tribunal organized by university students and stripped of his chair in the Havana Law School. In 1936, he was reinstated to it.

International work

He was the foremost Cuban authority on international law through his death. Bustamante participated as Cuban delegated in the II Peace Conference of The Hague in 1907, and a year later was appointed judge of the Arbitration Court of The Hague. In 1919, he was the Cuban diplomatic representative to the Peace Conference in Paris. In 1921, he was elected by the League of Nations as judge to the Permanent Court of International Justice, and reelected in 1930 for a second term that must have expired in 1942. Bustamante was one of the founders, vice-president, and later president of the Academy of International and Comparative Law of The Hague in 1923. He authored of the Code of Private International Law, Bustamante Code, approved by most Latin American states in the VI International Conference of Havana (1928), which he presided.

For his code, President Gerardo Machado granted him the Cross of the National Order of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, the highest decoration of the Cuban republic. Bustamante was awarded honorary doctorates in La Sorbonne, Columbia University, and the Universidad de San Marcos de Lima among others. Bustamante presided over and participated in the II and III International Congress of Comparative Law held in 1935 and 1937. He was nominated in 1949 by Nefali Ponce, the Foreign Minister of Ecuador for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bibliography

• Bernard, L. L. (1 January 1931). "St. Louis Law Review". Washington University Law Review. 16 (4): 339–340. ISSN 2166-7993. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
• Kadner, Daniel (1999). Das internationale Privatrecht von Ecuador [The international private law of Ecuador] (in German). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 3-16-147229-2.
• Keltie, John Scott (1909). The Statesman's Year-Book (46 ed.). London: Macmillan & Co. ISBN 978-0-230-27038-1.
• Shabas, William A. (2017). Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals. Cheltenham, UK. ISBN 978-1-78100-501-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Anuario Social de La Habana 1939, (Luz-Hilo, S.A.) (in Spanish)
• New York Times; Dr. de Bustamante, Noted Jurist, Dead; 26 August 1951, Page 77.
• Time; Milestones; 3 September 1951.
• Time; The League of Nations: Mutt & Jeff, Queen Bee; 29 September 1930.
• Wood, Leonard (1903). Civil Report of the Military Governor of Cuba.