RIO DE JANEIRO, PROTOCOL OF

(1942), treaty settling possession of the disputed Oriente region on the border of Peru and Ecuador, arranged by a conference of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers held at Rio de Janeiro. Peruvian forces had occupied the area in 1941, defeating the poorly equipped Ecuadoran army. Initial attempts by the United States, Argentina, and Brazil to arrange a peaceful settlement had failed, but at the conference in 1942 these powers, joined by Chile, compelled Ecuador to agree to the settlement, by which it ceded about 77,000 square miles (200,000 square km) of the disputed territory to Peru. The precise border was never established, and in 1960 the president of Ecuador, Jos Mara Velasco Ibarra, repudiated the treaty, thus leaving the dispute unresolved.