The American Legal Integration process, from an historic perspective, has been developed through the following stages:
a) Proposals to articulate the Spanish-American Kingdoms (late 18th Century and early 19th Century, such as the Reserved Brief by the Count of Aranda);
b) Latin American Projects and Utopias (the first two thirds of the 19th Century such as the Letter from Jamaica and the Panama Congress, the first written and the second promoted by the Liberator Simon Bolivar. The Continental Empire and the Republic proposed by the forerunner Francisco de Miranda, the Family Pact promoted by Lucas Alaman as well as other Conferences and International Treaties);
c) Pan American Projects (late 19th Century to the present day, counted as of the proposal of a Customs Union in 1889 and the Organization of the American States, and up to the new free trade projects in 2005);
d) Latin American Projects (1950’s-1980’s to the present, from the creation of the United Nations Economic Committee for Latin America (CEPAL – per its Spanish Acronym) and the Latin American Free Trade Region (ALALC – per its Spanish Acronym) up to the Latin American and Caribbean States Community (CELAC – per its Spanish Acronym);
e) Sub-regional fragmentation of the continent (1960s-1990’s to the present day, from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN – per its Spanish Acronym), the Central American Integration System (SICA – per its Spanish Acronym), the Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM – per its Spanish Acronym) up to the Union of Southern Nations (UNASUR – per its Spanish Acronym), the Alliance of the Pacific and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR – per its Spanish Acronym);
f) The re-launch of Latin America (since 2005 through the Bolivarian Alliance of Nations ALBA [per its Spanish Acronym] and then through the CELAC) and the sudden change of direction towards the Pacific Region (since 1990 through the Asia – Pacific Co-operation Forum (APEC) and lately through the Strategic Trans- Pacific Agreement of Economic Association (TPP).
(For periodization and more information see Juan Pablo Pampillo Baliño. La Integración Americana Expresión de un Nuevo Derecho Global. Mexico. Porrua 2012)
