BRAZIL AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION: THE MERCOSUR

Brazil is a founding member of MERCOSUR, the Southern Common Market, which was formed in 1991 through the Treaty of Asuncion and was originally established, along with Brazil, by Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The MERCOSUR, whose developments have mostly focused on forming a common market, has been, however, far less successful, and the gap between rhetoric and practice is conspicuous.^[1211] It has not achieved the expected full economic integration through the establishment of a common market. Despite the initial steps toward trade opening, as prompted by the then prevailing neoliberal agenda,^[1212] structural difficulties mounted.^[1213] Substantial economic asymmetries - Brazil’s GDP is about two thirds of MERCOSUR’s GDP, for example - have since hampered the construction of a common market.^[1214] Yet, there have been some positive gains leading to it being regarded as �the most successful and ambitions example of regional integration in Latin America’.^[1215] Though more concentrated in the 1990s, the mutual benefits have been very positive in some areas such as macroeconomic stabilisation and liberalisation, intraregional interdependence, exports and investment.^[1216] Difficulties escalated particularly from the late 1990s onwards and the regional bloc has since lost

Brazil and Regional Integration: The MERCOSUR 187 much of its momentum,^[1217] suffering from a series of setbacks such as monetary crises, growing economic asymmetries, trade wars, divergent external trade agenda, fragmentation and overlapping partnerships (UNASUR, for instance).^[1218] There is also a growing perception that the member states are not seriously engaging in strengthening the bloc and are even attempting to deconstruct some of its achievements.^[1219]

Furthermore, its evolution has been very reliant on the countries’ own agen­das, instead of a common one,^[1220] and decisions have been made by negotiation among member states, not really by supranational institutions.^[1221] More recently, MERCOSUR was seriously attacked by President Bolsonaro and his Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, based on their belief that it is a bloc of �leftist ideo­logical orientation’.^[1222] Brazil has become, however, increasingly economically dependent on MERCOSUR’s trade surplus, especially now that the country has performed poorly economically.^[1223] Strategic partnerships are also taking place through MERCOSUR, such as the EU-MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement, which aims to �increase bilateral trade and investment’, �create stable rules for trade and investment’ and �promote joint values’ in areas such as labour rights, sustainable development, climate change and environmental protection, among others.^[1224] It has not yet been ratified and it has suffered some obstacles, especially in view of Brazil’s disastrous environmental policy under President Bolsonaro, conflicting views among state members and lobby groups.^[1225]

Moreover, even though originally thought mostly as an economic bloc, MERCOSUR has also invested some energy in fostering democratic princi­ples and the rule of law as well as in designing some mechanisms to protect them.

impeachment) and Venezuela in 2017. It had already brought forth the defence of democracy in its Protocol of Ushaia I,^[1227] whose Article 1 establishes that �the full effectiveness of democratic institutions is an essential condition for the development of integration processes among the state members’ and Article 5 defines the mechanisms to be adopted in the circumstance of violation of demo­cratic principles, such as the �suspension of participation in distinct organisms of the respective integration process to the suspension of rights and duties resulting from such processes’. Still, the focus on human rights more specifically gained momentum from 2005 onwards through the Protocol of Asuncion on the Commitment to Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in MERCOSUR^[1228] and the creation of organisms and programmes aimed at fostering human rights, also through a more productive dialogue with civil society.^[1229] This MERCOSUR’s emphasis on democratic principles and human rights followed the left-leaning political turn^[1230] among the member states and, especially, Brazil’s South-South strategy during the presidency of Lula da Silva (2003-10).^[1231]

The Protocol of Asuncion on the Commitment to Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in MERCOSUR, adopted in June 2005 and in force since 2010, was a turning point in this policy of fostering human rights in the bloc.^[1232] Similarly to the Protocol of Ushaia I, but now targeting human rights violations, the Protocol of Asuncion defines the measures to adopt when �serious systematic human rights violations occur in the context of institutional crises or states of emergency in one of the parties’.^[1233] Its enforcement takes place in circumstances of �serious and systematic violations of human rights and basic freedoms by one of the parties’, though specifically for �situations of institutional crisis’ or �state of emergency’.^[1234] If no solution to the crisis is found through consultation with the affected party, some penalties can be imposed, from the �suspension of participating in the distinct organisms of the integration process to the suspen­sion of the rights and duties originated therefrom’.^[1235] Various other instruments also address human rights protections and democratic principles,^[1236] and regional

Brazil and Regional Integration: The MERCOSUR 189 bodies and forums^[1237] were created to disseminate policies and monitor their accomplishment against past^[1238] and present human rights violations.

They have had, nonetheless, a limited capacity to effectively tackle the long­standing wrongs of the region, such as poverty and inequality.^[1239] The bloc has not drafted a bill of rights and its Court - the Permanent Review Tribunal - is not really a Court of Justice aimed at deciding cases on human rights or exerting supranational judicial review.^[1240] Litigations, by the same token, have concentrated basically on matters of economic integration.^[1241] Its Parliament (PARLASUR), established in 2006 with the purpose of bringing a more political approach to the bloc,^[1242] has very limited powers and, since its inception, has not effectively functioned as a supranational legislative body.^[1243] On the other hand, by bringing forward the agenda on human rights and democracy, MERCOSUR has served as a mechanism to promote regional integration and foster governance by �keeping a hard stance on non-intervention and sovereignty’, which is quite a divisive topic at the Organisation of American States (OAS).^[1244] Despite that, the connec­tion of MERCOSUR with the OAS’s Inter-American System of Human Rights is strong and both share similar and complementary ideas on the enforcement of such rights.^[1245]

The rise of other regional blocs, such as UNASUR in 2004, which Brazil promoted because of conflicts with the MERCOSUR member states and their trade agendas,^[1246] would reveal the underlying difficulties of South America’s regional integration.

The existence of diverse regional blocs could result in segmentation of policies, difficulties in reaching consensus, loss of focus and greater exposition

to national swings.^[1248] However, UNASUR could also be seen as a more flexible regional bloc than MERCOSUR in facilitating dialogue and cooperation among the member states because of its design and lower constraints on their foreign policy goals.^[1249] It could, for example, reconcile countries drawn toward bilat­eral free trade agreements, such as Chile, with more protectionist ones such as Bolivia, Venezuela, and, to some extent, Brazil and Argentina.^[1250] Its insti­tutionally flexible architecture aimed at increasing dialogue and cooperation notwithstanding,^[1251]7 UNASUR would prove itself not viable enough to facil­itate the coordination of interests among its members. In fact, all it took to dismantle UNASUR was the rise of right-wing presidents in some countries in the region. In 2018, a group of countries then led by right-wing presidents in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru decided to suspend their participation in the bloc, and created PROSUL (Forum for the Progress of South America). PROSUL was founded by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guiana and Peru with the clear purpose of antagonising Venezuela. Once again, regional integration would suffer from ideological and political swings.^[1252] PROSUL, however, looks even more institutionally fragile than UNASUR already was, which may turn out badly in terms of coordinating common interests which have an effective impact.

MERCOSUR, UNASUR, and now PROSUL are examples of the difficulty in establishing regional integration despite the strong cultural, legal, economic and political bonds among the Southern American countries. The movement that led to PROSUL reveals not only incapacity of coordination and �improvisation’,^[1253] but also that, as Juan Herrera correctly puts it, �disintegration is a matter of method’.^[1254] The nonexistence of a strong regional bloc, with effective suprana­tional institutions, not only reduces the capacity of the region to economically compete in the international arena, but also weakens the potential of inter­national law to work as a �mechanism of constitutional stabilization’^[1255] and democratic defence. MERCOSUR, the oldest and most institutionally devel­oped of the three, is still far from reaching its potential in terms of economic integration, democratic consolidation and enforcement of the rule of law. It is the bloc that has long survived despite the political and economic swings of its member states and the one whose institutional design, though still very much flawed, comes closer to other more successful models of regional integration.

Despite that, a more collaborative and engaged integration in the region demands further coordinated efforts and investment from its member states. Until then, it seems that regional integration will not strengthen the regional economy nor help overcome the longstanding woes of the region, such as poverty, inequality, corruption and institutional deficiencies.

IV