Regional Integration in Latin America - The Pacific Alliance a Way Ahead
  • Home
  • About the blog
    • Editor
    • Contributors
  • Library
    • Articles
    • Academic
    • Book Chapters
    • Book Reviews
    • Books
    • Briefing Papers
    • Conference Papers
    • Discussion Papers
    • Language
    • Journal Articles
    • Publications in English
    • Publications in French
    • Publications in Italian
    • Publications in Portuguese
    • Publications in Spanish
    • Reports
    • Theses
    • Working Papers
  • Recommended Sources
    • Latin America
    • Asia Pacific
    • Research
    • Latin America-Asia Pacific
Home
About the blog
    Editor
    Contributors
Library
    Articles
    Academic
    Book Chapters
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Briefing Papers
    Conference Papers
    Discussion Papers
    Language
    Journal Articles
    Publications in English
    Publications in French
    Publications in Italian
    Publications in Portuguese
    Publications in Spanish
    Reports
    Theses
    Working Papers
Recommended Sources
    Latin America
    Asia Pacific
    Research
    Latin America-Asia Pacific
  • Home
  • About the blog
    • Editor
    • Contributors
  • Library
    • Articles
    • Academic
    • Book Chapters
    • Book Reviews
    • Books
    • Briefing Papers
    • Conference Papers
    • Discussion Papers
    • Language
    • Journal Articles
    • Publications in English
    • Publications in French
    • Publications in Italian
    • Publications in Portuguese
    • Publications in Spanish
    • Reports
    • Theses
    • Working Papers
  • Recommended Sources
    • Latin America
    • Asia Pacific
    • Research
    • Latin America-Asia Pacific
Regional Integration in Latin America - The Pacific Alliance a Way Ahead
Contributions, Posts

Costa Rica as the SICA Outlier

Carlos Arturo Villagrán PhD Candidate from the Melbourne Law School has shared with the Pacific Alliance Blog his insights on the role that Costa Rica has played and continues to play in Central America and particularly in the Central American integration.

Difference Stuart MilesPhotocredits: Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Costa Rica’s relationship with and within integration processes has been, and continues to be unique and different to its regional partners in Central America.
Since the 1950’s, the Central American region has been attempting to consolidate a regional integration scheme; however, these efforts continue to display and repeat the same old differences and pathologies since the fall of the Central American federation in 1838.
In this enterprise for integration, Costa Rica displays itself as an interesting outlier. Costa Rica, different to its regional neighbors, has been historically interested in consolidating its export industry and agricultural diversification. In addition, Costa Rica has been successful in maintaining a stable and democratic rule since the 1950s. This had aided Costa Rica to provide its citizens a higher quality of life than its regional counterparts. This has made Costa Rica, understandably, weary of its neighbors and to remain outside of the regional struggle.

Nevertheless, Costa Rica during the regional turmoil period, between 1975 and 1985, understood itself as not part of the regional problem, but as affected by it. In those years the Central American common market, born in the early 1960s, halted and, also due to the external conditions, Costa Rica fell into economic depression.

In this pursuit of economic recovery, Costa Rica became a leader for the return of the region to democracy and peace. Nevertheless, Costa Rica promoted a policy of ‘intervention without integration’. Following this line of thought, Costa Rica was not particularly against integration, rather it focused on using regional machinery, or the integration process, in order to successfully insert itself into the international markets. This position has led Costa Rica to become a reluctant player within the new Central-American integration enterprise, founded in 1991.

This reluctance has been displayed by the fact that it has not ratified many of the Central-American integration treaties, including those agreements  to become a member of the regional parliament and the court. In addition, Costa Rica aided for the creation of a new WTO-like dispute settlement scheme in the region, taking away the competencies of the newly established regional court.

Continue reading

April 13, 2016by Ana Maria Palacio

Recent Posts

  • Featuring a New Library for the Pacific Alliance
  • Presidential Meeting and Further Negotiations
  • Pacific Alliance: The Cat Bonds and FTA Negotiations
  • Pacific Alliance Presidential Moves: Safe for Now?
  • Roadmap for the Pacific Alliance’s Digital Agenda

About Editors

Hello my name is Ana Maria Palacio. I am a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. This blog is about my research project, the Pacific Alliance.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Categories

  • Academic
  • Articles
  • Book Chapters
  • Book Reviews
  • Books
  • Briefing Papers
  • Conference Papers
  • Contributions
  • Cooperation
  • Discussion Papers
  • Editor's choice
  • English
  • Featured
  • French
  • Italian
  • Journal Articles
  • News
  • Portuguese
  • Posts
  • Publications
  • Reports
  • Spanish
  • Theses
  • Uncategorized
  • Working Papers

Keywords

achievements (12) ALBA (13) APEC (6) Argentina (6) Asia Pacific (25) background (9) Brazil (19) challenges (12) Chile (25) China (10) Colombia (33) convergence (11) cooperation (19) counterbalance (7) deep integration (7) economic integration (17) European Union (8) Financial integration (7) foreign policy (14) free trade agreements (11) geopolitics (11) innovation (7) institutional (9) Integration (44) intra-regional trade (7) investment (10) Latin-America (33) Mercosur (43) Mexico (25) MILA (8) objectives (16) open regionalism (20) origin (8) Pacific Alliance (19) Peru (20) prospects (9) regional integration (17) regionalism (36) South America (6) The Andean Community (7) The United States (13) TPP (10) trade (6) trade agreements (11) UNASUR (9)

Archives

“I started with The Pacific Alliance blog to provide you with news and information about the latest developments and challenges ahead for the integration scheme.”

© 2018 copyright Ana Maria Palacio    website by studio t-bac 
Independent Pacific Alliance Blog / disclaimer