Modesto Seara Vázquez

Modesto Seara Vázquez (11 September 1931 – 26 December 2022) was a Spanish-born Mexican jurist and academic.

He lived in several countries (Spain, England, France, Germany) but has spent most of his life in Mexico.

In 1950 he went to Madrid to prepare for his Aeronautical Engineering degree.

Shortly afterwards he discovered his true vocation, which was the study of international issues, and he moved on to the law degree.

He studied at the Faculty of Law of the Central University of Madrid (today Complutense University), being among the last generation to study at Calle de San Bernardo, before the faculty was transferred to the University City.

His doctoral thesis, entitled «Études de Droit Interplanetaire», provoked a lot of interest and Le Figaro Literaire dedicated a long report written by Beatrix Beck, Goncourt Literature Prize, to support the thesis.

Radio Paris also broadcast a series of interviews with Modesto Seara Vazquez entitled «The Interplanetary Law Seen from Paris».

As a result, he was invited to present a paper at the Congress of the International Astronautical Federation (London 1959) in which he enunciated his theory of the functional regulation of space, later published in Vienna (1960), and which would be assumed by the majority of jurists.

In that first decade of the 1960, Modesto Seara Vazquez had a very active academic life at National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he published a book on outer space law «Cosmic International Law» and a text on Public International Law, which would expand to 25 editions by 2016.

All the editions of his books are subject to an update by him before he authorizes its publication.

On 1 March 1961 he began his collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, as a full-time research professor at the Institute of Comparative Law, now the Institute of Legal Research.

At the same time he began to collaborate with the Faculty of Law and the School of Political and Social Sciences (now the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences) holding the chairs of Public International Law and International Organization.

In 1961 he published his first book «Introduction to International Cosmic Law», a revised and updated edition of his doctoral thesis, that years later was translated into English.

In 1963, part of the thesis was also published in Russian, in Moscow.

In Paris, Modesto Seara Vazquez met a great figure of Mexican life, Isidro Fabela, who was introduced to him by the military advisor of the Mexican Embassy, General Alberto Salinas Carranza, one of the founders of Mexican aviation.

Isidro Fabela was traveling to Europe with his wife Doña Josefina.

The advanced age of both made them fear to travel alone so they decided to bring with them Modesto Seara Vazquez.

Isidro Fabela's friendship was decisive in the life of Modesto Seara Vazquez, since it opened many doors and integrated him quickly into the life of the country.

From 1965 to 1966 he was Professor at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in an extremely enriching stay, where he lived with the essentially Mormon community of the State of Utah, one of the last theocracies in the Western world.

In spite of his political ideas, different from those prevailing in that environment, he always had the respect of his hosts.

While having different vacation periods, he got to know the whole western part of the United States and traveled frequently through the states of Utah, California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

He also visited British Columbia, in Canada, where he stayed briefly in Vancouver.

Modesto Seara Vazquez joined an international movement in favor of the Jews of the Soviet Union, as part of the Latin American Committee, defending «the right to leave».

In 1967 he created the Mexican Institute of Internacional Relations that years later was changed to The Mexican Association of International Studies.

In 1969 Modesto Seara Vazquez decided to spend his sabbatical year in Europe, half of it in Spain and the other part in Berlin (West) where he carried out research on Franco's foreign policy, using the bibliographic and periodical collections of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, in Berlin.

During this period he also gave lectures in East Germany at the Karl Marx Universität, from Leipzig and Universität Rostock.

In the 70's he combined his academic activities with an intense participation in the Press and the Media.

In «El Sol de México» he wrote editorial comments and several special articles, also on sundays he wrote the Sunday supplement in «El Mundo desde el Sol» which was a weekly commentary about the international life with a little bit of humor.

He was appointed general advisor of «Canal 13 TV (public television)» where he also wrote weekly comments about the international life in the «Séptimo día» program.

A part from that he created a series of international reports named «Paz y Conflicto» which programs were The Impossible Peace (on the Middle East), April in Portugal (the carnation Revolution, in Lisbon, Portugal), They Will Not Kill Hope (about Chilean political life and the death of Salvador Allende), the New Empire (about the last years of the Iran of Shah Reza Pahleví), and so on.

For more than two decades, he participated in many countries in different activities like lectures, seminars, conferences, etc. In October 1973, during the Yon Kippur war, he visited the USSR as part of a commission of four people that were sent to meet Jews who were denied an exit visa.

That Commission visited Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi and Leningrad.

He runs the Mexican Yearbook of International Relations that he founded in 1980.

In 1983, Modesto Seara Vazquez decided to abandon politics and return to university life, working at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

They were several years of an intense academic activity, both national and internacional where he increased his publications publishing new books and new editions, as well as essays.

He has actively participated in Mexican life as a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and since 1988 as the Rector of the Oaxaca State University System in the State of Oaxaca.

He died in Mexico City on 26 December 2022, at the age of 91.

Modesto Seara Vazquez experienced the political persecution to which his father was subjected by the Franco regime, a situation which was surely decisive in defining his political vocation and position for international issues, because the surveillance of his home in the run-up to the Second World War left him marked with that passion forever.

In 1989 he was elected Vice President of the International Studies Association (ISA).

At the ISA-MAIE meeting held in Acapulco, Guerrero, he concluded his term as president of MAEI and he was elected Honorary President of the Association.