It’s the name of a whole continent.  Indeed, as with so many minor controversies today, there is a Facebook group for that.

There is a legal angle here, and I am getting to it.  A couple of weeks ago, twenty-five Latin American and Caribbean states met to discuss the formation of a new regional organization.  The idea is not entirely new, as the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean states has been around for more than 20 years.  But at this meeting the member states seem to have reached an agreement to form an official alternative to the Organization of American States.

The International Law Observer commented on the “challenging political, economic, and legal questions” raised by the creation of the new organization:

This project gives rise to a number of challenging political, economic and legal questions. The present diplomats discussed, among other things, the question of the degree of economic and political integration. In this respect, the Mexican president put forward the question whether this organisation should be the first step towards an economic and political union similar to the European Union. This would involve the creation of a new free-trade area or even a common market, similar to those already established among some Latin-American and Caribbean countries, such as MERCOSUR and CARICOM.

Another question arising is relates to the fate of the current Organisation of American States (OAS). It is likely that this organization would remain in existence beside the proposed new entity but would increasingly lose political importance. At least, as regards regional human rights protection, the OAS would retain its significance since this organization hosts the most important human rights treaty in the Americas, the American Convention on Human Rights, which has, incidentally, not been ratified by the USA and Canada (for information on the state of ratification see here).

Be it as it may, the efforts to create a new American regional organisation present a number of opportunities for the further integration and development of this region. It can only be hoped that this effort will not be scotched by the various political tensions between the different ideologies and interests present in Latin-America and the Caribbean.

I agree with most of that, except that I probably wouldn’t call the United States’ failure to ratify the most important human rights treaty in the Americas “incidental” to this development.  It seems likely that the United States’ reluctance to join in that treaty and many others (along with our courts’ reluctance to consider the legal opinions of other nations when interpreting our own law, even law that implements treaties) is related to the apparently growing sense that international law will simply go about its business without us.

Reports about the group’s aims are confusing and to some extent contradictory, perhaps not boding well for its prospects. As Radio Free Europe reports, “One major question to be resolved is whether the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States will coexist with the 62-year-old Organization of American States (OAS) or supplant it. Both views were put forward at the meeting.”  Mexico told the Winnipeg free press that “”Mexico doesn’t want to create a new organization, nor a binding agreement,” and that the idea is to reduce the number of regional summits, by creating one very important summit, similar to the Asia-Pacific APEC meeting.

Most interesting to me, in reading about the meeting, was to see the way that different news sources characterized the event.  Reading them is a good lesson in persuasive writing.

“An Organization of American States Without the United States” (International Law Observer)

“Latin America Proposes New Bloc Without U.S., Canada” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

“Latin America Agrees on a Regional Bloc Without the United States” (El Pais, translated by me)

“U.S., Canada Excluded from New Organization for the Americas” (digitaljournal)

“Snubbed and Excluded from Brazil and Friends Club U.S. Applauds Alliance” (brazzilmag, with terrible punctuation error in original)

“Cuba Pushes Latin American Cooperation Without U.S.” (Reuters)

“New Latin American Group Unlikely to Have Teeth” (Winnipeg Free Press)