Legal Architecture of International Trade: Regional Integration and Dispute Resolution

The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) was consolidated with the entry into force of the Treaty of Asunción signed on March 26, 1991, by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In commercial terms, MERCOSUR seeks to achieve a Common Market which implies, according to Article 1: - The free movement of goods, services and productive factors between the countries, through, among other measures, the elimination of customs duties and non-tariff restrictions on the movement of merchandise and any other equivalent measures; - The establishment of a common external tariff and the adoption of a common commercial policy with respect to third States or groupings of States and the coordination of positions in regional and international economic and trade forums; - The coordination of macroeconomic and sectoral policies among the Member States: foreign trade, agricultural, industrial, fiscal, monetary, exchange and capital, services, customs, transport and communications policies and others as agreed, in order to ensure adequate conditions of competition among the Member States; - The commitment of the Member States to harmonize their legislation in the relevant areas, in order to strengthen the integration process. These commercial objectives are primarily aimed, according to the preamble of the Treaty, at expanding the current dimensions of their national markets through integration, a fundamental condition to accelerate their processes of economic development with social justice. To implement these objectives, MERCOSUR created various bodies throughout its existence. The so-called dispute settlement mechanism, established since the 1991 Brasilia Protocol, is part of this integration process. The main function of this mechanism is to provide the States with the necessary legal tools to resolve disputes that may arise among them peacefully, through arbitration and by impartial third parties, the arbitrators. Initially the arbitral system was eminently ad hoc, that is, constituted to resolve the specific case, but with the entry into force of the Olivos Protocol in 2002, the Permanent Review Tribunal was created, based in the City of Asunción, Republic of Paraguay. The regulations of the aforementioned Olivos Protocol approved by MERCOSUR/CMC/DEC. No. 37/03, in its art. 5, determine that the PRT will have a Secretariat (ST) whose primary objective is to provide support to the arbitrators in the resolution of disputes and Advisory Opinions. Notwithstanding this principal function, since its creation the ST has also been carrying out various academic and outreach activities regarding the MERCOSUR dispute settlement system through talks, conferences, seminars and technical visits, in which hundreds of students from various university courses have participated, as well as the semiannual publication of the Secretariat of the Permanent Review Tribunal Journal (RSTPR). On this occasion, the ST creates a training course in Integration Law with an emphasis on the dispute settlement mechanism, which aims to provide a training tool that allows interested parties to deepen or complement their knowledge on the subject matter. In addition, it is presented as an opportunity to disseminate MERCOSUR law as well as its dispute settlement system. This module is intended to be introductory, indicating, in the first part, the basic elements that will serve to lead us into the central axis of the course, which is the dispute settlement mechanism developed in MERCOSUR. To that end, some basic notions related to regional integration processes are addressed and the main characteristics of the various schemes and forms of integration will be mentioned. Once this brief overview is provided, certain milestones in the evolution of the multilateral trading system and its compatibility with the integration processes previously explained are discussed. Finally, there is an approach to the dispute settlement mechanism in the WTO, whose characteristics resemble, in certain aspects, the mechanism adopted by MERCOSUR.