Armed Forces and Public Order: Ministerial Agreement 179 from a Latin American and National Historical Perspective

Abstract

This paper presents a bibliographic type based qualitative research regarding a general chronological analysis of the role that the Armed Forces have played in the Latin American States and specifically in Ecuador, from the return to democracy in 1979, to the current days. With this same approach, a critical stance about the development of the Doctrine of National Security will be reviewed, which is used as a theoretical justification to respond to contemporary threats with the meddling of the Armed Forces in internal matters of States by exercising roles traditionally corresponding to the Police. In accordance with this reality, a normative study of the Ministerial Agreement 179 will be also presented, regulating the use of force by military bodies within several contexts, including matters of public policy; this analysis will aim to highlight the lack of the Agreement when comparing to international standards. Additionally, the analysis will also highlight the poor scale of rational use of force, leading to a potential infringement of rights. Finally, a plausible proposal to establish a new scale of rational use of force according to the human rights paradigm will be presented.

Keywords: Armed Forces, public order, rational use of force, territorial security, national security doctrine, human rights