De-Colonializing Regional Integration in Latin America?
| Autor | Belén Olmos Giupponi |
| Cargo del Autor | Associate Professor and Head of Law Kingston University London |
| Páginas | 65-88 |
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De-Colonializing Regional Integration
in Latin America?
Belén Olmos Giupponi*
e paper surveys theoretical underpinnings behind dierent
waves of integration over 20th and 21th centuries, touching
upon topics such as economic integration and Latin American
creation of international organizations. It presents an analysis
of the complex scenario of regional integration as it canvasses
the various factors sustaining the evolution of integration
agreements.
Regional integration emerged as a driving force in the pro-
cess of de-colonisation in Latin America. Precisely, Miranda
and Bolivar envisaged the creation of a confederation between
the former colonies. In a post-colonial context, however,
regional integration took various shapes leading to dierent
strands of evolution. Overall, regional integration theories have
oscillated between the armation of regional identities and the
transplant of foreign institutional models. At the beginning
* Associate Professor and Head of Law Kingston University London. In
2004 she earned a Ph.D. in Law from the University Carlos III. She holds an M.A.
in Human Rights (University Carlos III) and a Master in International Relations.
Email: belen_olmos_giupponi@biari.brown.edu.
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Derecho internacional: investigación, estudio y enseñanza
of the 20th century, the creation of the Central American Per-
manent Court of Justice represented the rst truly Latin Ame-
rican institution. e irruption of the United States with the
idea of Pan-Americanism constituted one of the main features
of the integration during the rst half of the 20th century. At
the same time, the dependency theory postulated by Prébisch
was coined. In the 1960s and 1970s, the predominance of the
‘European Communities model’ led to the import of legal ins-
titutions. e Latin American Free Trade Association ()
and the Latin American Integration Association (in Spanish:
) embodied the aspirations of Latin American nations.
Incontestably, democratisation and the restoration of the
rule of law in many Latin American countries during the
early and mid-1980s, alongside with the ‘open regionalism’
approach taken, boosted the ‘new wave’ of regional integration
overcoming the so-called ‘lost decade of regional integra-
tion’. us, the 1990s were praised as a ‘new era’ for regional
integration in the Americas, with the revamping of existing
economic integration processes such as the Andean Group or
the Organisation of Central American States, and the signing
of new agreements, namely, the Southern Common Market
(Mercosur). Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, there was
a signicant shift after the failure of the Free Trade Area of
the Americas ( ), and some countries went through eco-
nomic crisis. is gave rise to yet more new approaches which
proclaimed a ‘thicker’ integration, including not only free
trade and economic integration as the ‘usual suspects’ but also
incorporating human rights questions. Hence, in the 2000s as
a reaction to the and in a post-Washington consensus
scenario new theories of integration emerged, entering the
domain of social dimension and bringing novel approaches
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