Ernesto Dihigo

Who was Ernesto Dihigo?

Ernesto Dihigo y López Trigo was a prominent Cuban jurist, diplomat, and professor. He served as the Cuban Foreign Minister during the administration of the presidency of Carlos Prio Socarras. He served as the Cuban Ambassador to the United States from January 1959 until February 1961 after the regime of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro.

Dihigo was a member of the Cuban Supreme Court in 1943 and served as a delegate to the United Nations. He served on the commission that wrote the Declaration of Human Rights. Dihigo's draft declaration was among the first considered when the U.N. Commission on Human Rights began work in 1946. He also pushed successfully for the Organization of American States to adopt its own American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and to establish an inter-American human-rights court.

From 1917 he was associated with the University of Havana beginning as a student. He served as Professor of Roman Law until 1960. In September 1955 he was a member of the Buraimi Arbitration Tribunal sitting in Geneva to adjudicate on a territorial dispute in south-eastern Arabia.