Complementarity and integration of the energy in South America : a juridical analysis based on the factors that obstruct the market integration

Abstract

Energy integration is not a unique project in the context of globalization. In fact, it is possible to trace its beginnings from more than 50 years ago, that is, at the end of the Second World War, with the Treaty of Coal and Steel Community, signed between two countries with a long history of conflict, and yet did not prevent to start what today we know as the European Union .

However, not all regions of the planet, energy integration processes have followed the same fate, in other words, over the twentieth century and during the decade of the current century, it has been possible to see reluctance of some countries in order to advance in the construction of a multilateral agenda which includes energetic supply services within the areas addressed by the WTO.

If we bring a little more analytical lens to focus on the legal treatment of energy in the Latin American context, specifically the Mercosur , we see that integration projects have been recently addressed by the heads of the states as a common interest area to the region, an issue that has been treated as we will see on the basis of two opposing views, such as energy understood as a power resource and the energy understood as a socio-political tool, with implications that both views imply.