Actors and Opportunities: Inter-Regional Processes of the Arab Region and Latin America and the Caribbean

Scientific Paper, nº. 25

This paper analyses links between Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Arab Countries. The relations between regional organizations in LAC and their peers in North Africa and the Arab world are still fairly nascent and represent a very understudied area of interregionalism in the global order. However, three cases of recent institutional rapprochement between LAC regional organizations (i.e. CELAC, UNASUR and MERCOSUR) and a North African and Arab World regional institution (i.e. LAS) are remarkable. The re-launching of South-South cooperation in recent decades in a multipolar context favored the rapprochement between LAC and the Arab world. Despite the fact that both regions are not a priority for each other, relations and exchange have constantly grown in the last 10-12 years, accompanied by a progressive institutionalization of the high level political dialogue. The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the main drivers and obstacles of this multi-layered interregionalism fostered by a political, economic and social state and non-state actors.