The residence agreement of Mercosur as an alternative form of protection : the challenges of a milestone in regional migration governance

Abstract

Latin American regional integration schemes have designed regimes for facilitating the movement of persons within the territory of their member states. The most well-known regional policy in the mobility agenda is the Residence Agreement (RAM) of the Southern Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur - Mercado Comum do Sur – Mercosur/Mercosul), which was signed in 2002 and which entered into force in 2009. The RAM creates a facilitated regime for residence for all the nationals of the signatory states, independent of whether migration was ‘voluntary’ or ‘forced’. This means that the RAM could be used for granting residence rights to refugees. In this Chapter I argue that, in face of the current ‘Venezuelan exodus’, the RAM could be used in the region as a way of facilitating the movement and regularization of Venezuelan citizens and thus, granting them residence rights as an alternative to protection.