AG/RES. 1559 (XXVIII-O/98)

LEGAL DEVELOPMENT OF INTEGRATION

(Resolution adopted at the third plenary session, held on June 2, 1998)

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

HAVING SEEN the report of the Permanent Council on legal development of integration;

BEARING IN MIND that the General Assembly, at its twenty-seventh regular session, in operative paragraph 2 of resolution AG/RES. 1493 (XXVII-O/97), "Legal Development of Integration," recommended that the Permanent Council "draw up a work plan in this area on the basis of the recommendations made at the Meeting of Experts of the Working Group on Legal Development of Integration"; and

BEARING IN MIND ALSO the Declaration of Santiago of the Second Summit of the Americas, held in Santiago, Chile, in April 1998, in which the intent to establish a hemispheric free trade area by 2005 was reaffirmed,

RESOLVES:

1. To request the OAS General Secretariat to prepare or compile the necessary documents, as appropriate, through its own departments and in coordination with other institutions, for more detailed study of the following topics and the issuance of recommendations thereon:

a. Comparative analysis of pertinent legal provisions in the member states and their legal implications for the establishment of a hemispheric free trade area;

b. Analysis of legal mechanisms and instruments that may be necessary for compatibility between bilateral and subregional agreements and a hemispheric free trade area;

c. A list of rights and obligations stemming from bilateral and subregional agreements and an inventory of legal instruments necessary for establishing a free trade area in the Hemisphere.

2. To request the General Secretariat to present the aforementioned studies and recommendations to the Permanent Council for consideration before June 1, 1999.

3. To instruct the Permanent Council to prepare, by the second half of 1999, the agenda for a meeting of government authorities and other experts, within the resources allocated in the program-budget and other resources, which shall be convened in the first quarter of 2000, in follow-up to the March 1997 meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, and to take into account for that purpose, among other things, the recommendations arising from the aforementioned studies.

4. To instruct the Permanent Council to report to the General Assembly in due course on the implementation of this resolution.