This study is focused on the evaluation of successes and failures of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur). This analysis of Mercosur’s integration seeks to identify the reasons why the bloc has stagnated in an incomplete customs union condition, although it was originally created to achieve a common market status. To understand the evolution of Mercosur, the study offers some thoughts about the role of the European Union (EU) as a model for regional integration. Although an EU-style integration has served as a model, it does not necessarily set the standards by which integration can be measured as we analyse other integration efforts. However, the case of Mercosur is emblematic: during its initial years, Mercosur specifically received EU technical assistance to promote integration according to EU-style integration. Its main original goal was to become a common market, but so far, almost thirty years after its creation, it remains an imperfect customs union.
The article demonstrates the extent to which almost thirty years of integration in South America could be considered a failure, which would be one more in a list of previous attempts of integration in Latin America, since the 1960s. Whether it is a failure or not, it is impossible to envisage EU-style economic and political integration in South America in the foreseeable future. So far, member states, including Brazil, which could supposedly become the engine of economic and political integration in South America, have remained sceptical about the possibility of integrating further politically and economically. As member states suffer political and economic turmoil, they have concentrated on domestic recovery before being able to dedicate sufficient time and energy to being at the forefront of integration.

De auteurs bespreken burgerparticipatie bij ruimtelijke besluitvorming. Daarbij wordt aandacht besteed aan de achtergrond van burgerparticipatie, de vorderingen die in recente wetgeving zijn gemaakt en de toekomst van burgerparticipatie in de Omgevingswet. Vanuit sociaalwetenschappelijk oogpunt wordt betoogd dat de wettelijke verankering in afdeling 3.4 Awb onvoldoende is. Burgerparticipatie is pas effectief als daadwerkelijk invloed ontstaat bij de participanten worden geactiveerd om deel te nemen en de mogelijkheid krijgen om het beslissingsproces te beïnvloeden.

‘Fragmentation’, ‘pluralism’, ‘constitutionalisation’ and ‘global administrative law’ are among the most dominant narratives of international legal order at present. Each narrative makes a descriptive claim about the current state of the international legal order, and outlines a normative vision for this order. Yet we must not lose sight of the conflicts between, and the contingency of these, and other narratives. This article seeks to recover both conflicts and contingency by showing how each may be used to explain a given event: the inauguration of a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation between the United State and India, better known as the ‘India-US nuclear deal’. I explain how the four narratives may be, and were, co-opted at different times to justify or critique the ‘deal’. This exercise serve two purposes: the application of four narratives reveal the various facets of the deal, and by its example the deal illuminates the stakes attached to each of the four narratives. In a final section, I reflect on why these four narratives enjoy their influential status in international legal scholarship.

De nieuwe Canadese Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation (een soort Aanwijzingen voor de Regelgeving) moedigen beleidsambtenaren en wetgevingsjuristen aan om internationale normen een voorkeursbehandeling te geven en het aantal ‘unique to Canada’-regels te beperken. Nu wordt internationale samenwerking over regelgeving, in verband met internationale handelsbelangen, wel steeds gebruikelijker, maar Canada gaat hiermee veel verder dan andere landen.