By His Excellency Carlos Herrera Rodríguez, Ambassador of the Republic of Peru to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Having recently arrived in The Hague, people often ask me how I feel. I usually respond: at home. Perhaps I should be a little more explicit. To say “at home” in this case is a reference to the land of my birth, Arequipa.
We Arequipeans tend to be insufferably proud. More so since one of our most illustrious fellow countrymen, Mario Vargas Llosa, was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature. We pass the time relating everything to our land, manifesting a very particular and regional pre-Copernican view of the world.
That said, it seems especially disconcerting to compare The Hague and Arequipa. A horizontal landscape in permanent dialogue with the sea contrasting with a city built in the middle of the desert, hoisted to an altitude of nearly 2,400 meters, and surrounded by volcanoes that reach 6,000 meters. A climate marked by rain and humidity in contrast with blue sky and intense aridity the greater part of the year.
Nevertheless, the resulting populations are similar. Austere, hardworking people who were forced to, and did, confront the challenges of nature. Paradoxically, a profusion of artists, category of the population known to be engaged in activities of dubious practicality, without which life would be painful if not unbearable. And, above all, the rule of Law.
When one settles into a bench in the Plaza de Armas of Arequipa, at midday, the bright sun forces you to squint. That said, looking with your eyes half closed makes your vision more acute. The forms and the shadows acquire clearly defined shapes and borders. Reality is clearer. This implies that the concepts become clearer as well.
I like to imagine that it is as a result of this that among the Pleiades of illustrious men produced by the city; there are mathematicians and scientists of the highest caliber along with watercolorists and more than a few caricaturists. The same conceptual clarity is also a necessity in the creation and administration of the law, and Arequipa is recognized as the juridical capital of the country as a result of the contributions of illustrious personalities and the proliferation of magistrates, lawyers, “paper pushers” of all classes and levels. The city is the official seat of the Constitutional Tribunal of Peru, and 3 of its 7 members (including their President) are originally from Arequipa.
In fact, one of the members of the Tribunal, Carlos Augusto Ramos Nuñez, has a thesis which is much less romantic and probably much more objective regarding the importance of Law in Arequipa: “Perhaps the abundance of lawyers and lawsuits in Arequipa can be explained by the preponderance of small rural landholders – a source of frequent judicial problems.”
If Arequipa is the juridical capital of Peru, The Hague is that of the world. I can speculate about the reasons for this (similar to and at the same time different from Arequipa: in the romantic version, the Dutch light, changing as in the landscapes of Vermeer, or in a dramatic chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, illuminates and clarifies the range of human problems. Looking at the situation more objectively it is obvious that a people engaged in commercial relations around the world need a method to resolve disputes). The result is that the iconic image of this city is the Peace Palace, the seat of the International Court of Justice.
In any case, in Peru, today, The Hague has gained a permanent place in the collective imaginary as source of justice in the world after the judgement of the International court of Justice on January 27th, 2014 which resolved in a definitive and peaceful manner our maritime dispute with Chile. The name of “The Hague” has become a historic one for us; in the same way that cities and places all over the world identify themselves with great military victories or defeats. A fortunate and promising sign of the times.
When, shortly after taking up my post, I visited the then President of the International Court of Justice, the Slovaque jurist Peter Tomka, I presented him with a Peruvian publication commemorating the judgement of January 27th. In one of the photographs, the imposing figure of Tomka reading this ICJ decision from a giant screen in the Plaza de Armas of Lima is watched by an expectant multitude as though it were a World Cup football match.
Tomka was impressed and amused by the image. (He mentioned it anecdotally in a later public event). Following our meeting, he had the courtesy to offer me a guided tour of some of the halls in the Peace Palace.
In one of those august chambers, among portraits of the distinguished jurists who had made their contribution to world peace, he showed me that of Don José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, Peruvian president between 1945 and 1948, and President of the International Court of Justice between 1967 and 1969.
Did I mention that Don José Luis Bustamante y Rivero was born in Arequipa?
