Sovereignty and regional integration in Latin America: a political conundrum?

There is an inherent contradiction between the regional integration projects in Latin America, albeit rhetorically conducted, and the staunch defense by most countries of their national sovereignty, which restricts and opposes many liberalization mechanisms implicit in, and necessary to, the integration processes, based on the rendition of sovereignty in some areas of economic relevance, including, and especially, trade and industrial policies, as well as other sectorial measures. The dilemma is historically compounded by a juridical tradition that places the retraction into an introverted ver...