Free trade area of the Americas: The viability of a regional legal order

The creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by the year 2005 has been a serious undertaking in the hemisphere since the first Summit of the Americas held in Miami in December of 1994. This entails the creation of a free trade agreement that would include virtually all the nations of the Western Hemisphere. However, this is not the first attempt at the creation of trade agreements within the region. From early efforts such as the Latin American Free Trade Agreement to current ones such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the MERCOSUR, there has been a push for the past 40 years at the use of free trade as a tool for economic development. Nevertheless, traditionally there has been a lack of legal and institutional analysis in the formation of these trading blocs. The same thing appears to be happening in the formation of the FTAA. This thesis analyzes and compares the differing trading blocs in the Western Hemisphere in terms of institutions and capacity to create regional norms and proposes the institutional framework needed for successful regional integration for the FTAA. It then looks at legal obstacles within the Constitutions of select States to the formation of this framework and problems that may arise in jurisdictional uncertainties between the plethora of trading blocs.