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domestic laws. Many of these laws were most likely introduced as building upon EU law,
but were in fact not required for accession. Initial evidence indicates that our supposition
may be correct. Poland’s recently developed a rather impressive environmental protection
policy, for instance, that greatly expanded upon EU law (Brown, Angel and Derr, 2000).
We suspect as well that EU enlargement is creating significant opportunities for policy
transfer. We know that national legislators in the applicant countries collaborated and
shared information while working to adopt the EU legal system. We also know that
national legislators in applicant countries closely scrutinized legislative frameworks in
current member states as they prepared for accession. Finally, we know as well that
applicant countries were invited to participate in the OMC for social inclusion and other
areas. Initial evidence suggests that policy transfers have indeed occurred. Lavenex
(2002), for instance, has attributed the convergence of refugee policies in the applicant
states to the transfer of policy approaches from the current member states. Enlargement
may have thus solidified the role of NP as regulatory institutions.
Our findings may have important implications for NP in other regional integration
efforts. We consider here Mercosur, one of the most impressive integration efforts
currently in existence.
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Has regional integration in South America benefited the NP of
member states? We can begin answering this question by determining whether Mercosur
has in the first place the appropriate legal capacity to be able to set precedents and has
created forums that can facilitate policy transfer.
With the Treaty of Asunción of 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto of 1995, Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay agreed to form a common market. Mercosur’s
founding treaties ask that a system of secondary laws, very similar in nature to that of the
EU, support the creation of a common market. Article 9 of the Protocol of Ouro Preto
concerns decisions, which are comparable in their broad scope to EU directives. It states:
‘The Common Market Council (CMC) will promulgate Decisions, whose adoption will
be obligatory for the Member States.’ Article 15 concerns resolutions, which are more
detailed in their nature and similar to EU Regulations. It states: ‘The Common Market
Group (CMG) will promulgate Resolutions, whose adoption will be obligatory for the
Member States’. Article 42 reiterates the obligatory nature of both decisions and
resolutions: ‘The laws emanated from Mercosur’s organs, which are discussed in Article
2 of this Protocol, have an obligatory character.’
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To date, Mercosur has produced hundreds of decisions and resolutions. Topics covered
range almost as broadly as those targeted by EU law: industrial processes, competition,
the environment, public health, consumer rights, research and development, professional
training, labor rights and many others (Duina, 2003). Mercosur officials are thus
constitutionally capable of setting legal precedents. Initial evidence points to an increase
28
One way of determining the success of an integration effort is to measure the increase of one member
state’s exports to the other member states as a percentage of that country’s total exports since joining the
bloc. Cameron has analyzed EU figures for 1958-1995 (Cameron, 1998). With the exception of Ireland
and Greece, member states show an average increase of 25 percentage points from the time of entry to
1995. For Mercosur and 1991-2000, that figure is 33 percentage points (estimates calculated from data in
International Monetary Fund, 1995 and International Monetary Fund, 2000). Argentina’s economic crisis
of late 2001 and 2002 has challenged, but not undermined, Mercosur.
29
Both decisions and resolution are expected to be transposed into national legal systems (Decision 23/00
of 2000) and become effective in Mercosur 30 days after the last member state announces their adoption
(Article 40 of the Protocol of Ouro Preto).
Convention