Regional Integration in North America and Europe: Lessons About Civil Rights and Equal Citizenship
Posted: 22 Oct 2001
Abstract
In an era of globalization facilitated by rapid technological change, regional integration of national economies has grown in popularity around the world. Europe and the Americas today both are in the midst of a grand experiment with regional integration. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has facilitated a freer flow of goods and capital between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Although the trade accord initially sparked controversy about the propriety of free trade between the three nations, they all ultimately approved the pact. The public controversy over the trade agreement focused little on human and civil rights. Nonetheless, these rights, particularly ones implicated by labor mobility, have emerged to the forefront in the years since NAFTA went into effect. Spain's experiences as part of the European Union's common market hold valuable lessons about the impact on regional integration of national markets on human and civil rights.
At the same time, the history of Latina/os in the Americas should be of great interest to Spaniards, if not only because persons of Latin American ancestry represent the legacy of Spain's colonization of a large portion of the Western Hemisphere. California, for example, once was part of Spain; the Spanish initially settled the territory that later became part of Mexico and ultimately the United States. Spain's imprint on the hemisphere remains intact as Latin America today is largely Spanish speaking. Understanding this colonial history helps place the ongoing regional integration into context. Colonialism represented a form of expansion of markets and accumulation of resources similar to the desired economic impacts of regional integration. Although colonial relationships often came through force, regional integration constitutes the more acceptable modern alternative.
In this vein, the analysis of regional integration in this series of essays reveals the economic, civil rights, and citizenship issues implicated by integration. The civil rights struggles of Latina/os in the United States, a focal point of LatCrit analysis, show the limits on integration as people move across the borders between the developing and developed worlds. With the help of Spanish legal scholars, LatCrit scholarship, which has been committed to investigating international law and human rights, stands to gain. As Spain grapples with the undocumented migration of North Africans into its territory, Spain, which like the United States has a southern border with the developing world, also may learn from studying the struggles of persons of Latin American ancestry in the Western Hemisphere.
Part I of this article discusses the lessons of regional integration. Part II analyzes the specific human and civil rights consequences of the migration issues implicated by regional integration in North America and Europe.
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