The Convention on the Exercise of Liberal Professions was signed at Montevideo on 4 August 1939 by the plenipotentiaries of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, at the Second South American Congress of Private International Law. Authentic text: Spanish. Depositary: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay. Article 4: simultaneous ratification is not required; the State which approves it communicates that fact to the Uruguayan Government, which notifies the other contracting States — that procedure takes the place of an exchange. Article 5: after that exchange, the Convention remains in force indefinitely. OAS F-12. It is not the Montevideo Convention of 4 February 1889, which Article 5 leaves without effect as between the Parties.

Article 1: nationals and foreigners who, in any signatory State, have obtained a title or diploma from the competent national authority to exercise a liberal profession shall be deemed qualified to exercise it in the other States, provided the studies and practical work keep a reasonable equivalence with those required of local students at the university of revalidation and the holder meets the general requirements of the profession; examinations may be taken in the missing subjects to complete equivalence — a framework, not a recognition handbook.

Article 2: the equivalence condition is deemed fulfilled when the holder of the diploma proves that he has held a university chair for ten years in one of the subjects of the profession. Article 3: for those effects, the diploma must be produced duly legalised, and the holder must prove that he is the person in whose favour it was issued.

OAS records the same-day signature of the five States; ratifications were later deposited by Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Bolivia and Peru signed without deposit. The instrument is short, five articles, distinct from the other Montevideo treaties of 1939–1940 (asylum, civil law, commercial navigation).

Cover: the Legislative Palace in Montevideo, the capital of the congress; we do not claim the signing room. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Convention on the Exercise of Liberal Professions of 1939; Convención sobre el ejercicio de profesionales liberales.