What UNASUR is and how it works

Four texts, and none of them a translation

The treaty was done at Brasília on 23 May 2008 in original copies in the English, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch languages, the four texts being equally authentic, and Article 23 carries the same four over as the official languages of the union. The provision is a description of who signed. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil alone among the members here, English of Guyana alone, Dutch of Suriname alone, and Spanish of the rest, with Aymara, Guarani and Quechua recorded beside it on Bolivia's own file.

The preamble says where that comes from. It undertakes to carry forward what MERCOSUR and the Andean Community had achieved, "as well as the experiences of Chile, Guyana and Suriname", naming the signatories that belonged to neither. A grouping assembled by continent rather than by language takes in the two Guianas that were never Spanish or Portuguese, and the treaty's own drafting is where that shows up first. The additional protocol of 2010 was signed at Georgetown in the same four languages, all of them equally authentic.

Every norm by consensus

Article 12 opens with the sentence the institution hangs on: all the norms of UNASUR will be adopted by consensus. Decisions may be taken with three quarters of the member states present, and a state that was absent has thirty days to make its position known, or fifteen days in the Council of Delegates. Working groups sit with half the membership plus one. The treaty therefore anticipates an empty chair without letting one carry a decision.

The rest of the apparatus rotates. Article 7 passes the pro tempore presidency to each member in alphabetical order for a year at a time. Article 10 gives the Secretary General a two-year term, renewable once, and forbids a successor of the same nationality.

Where the treaty put its own machinery

Article 10 seats the General Secretariat at Quito and Article 22 requires a headquarters agreement with Ecuador. Article 26 makes the Government of Ecuador the depositary of every instrument of ratification, and the same office of Article 8 of the democratic protocol. Article 17 places a South American Parliament at Cochabamba and leaves its composition to an additional protocol that a transitory article told a special commission, meeting in Cochabamba, to draft. The Library of the National Congress of Chile, reviewing the file in April 2019, recorded that the building meant for that parliament had been completed in September 2018 and that the draft protocol had not been put to the member states. The treaty itself was registered with the United Nations Secretariat under number 60,773, as Article 27 requires.

The suspension, the notes, and the six months

On 20 April 2018 six member states announced that they were suspending their participation for an indefinite period. Colombia gave written notice of denunciation on 27 August 2018, stating that the organisation had kept silent about the treatment of citizens in Venezuela. Ecuador announced its withdrawal on 13 March 2019 and asked for the return of the building outside Quito that housed the General Secretariat. On 22 March 2019 eight governments signed a document at Santiago declaring an intention to constitute the Forum for the Progress of South America in place of UNASUR. Paraguay's note followed on 11 April 2019, Argentina's on 12 April 2019, Brazil's on 15 April 2019 and Chile's on 18 April 2019.

The Argentine note went to Ecuador as depositary and to the pro tempore presidency, and the accompanying statement gave as its reasons a General Secretariat that had been without a head for more than two years, an agenda far from the founding objectives, and administrative disorder. Brazil's note cited the document signed at Santiago three weeks earlier.

Article 24 lets any member denounce the treaty by written notice to the depositary, with effect six months after the notice is received. Argentina's denunciation, lodged on 12 April 2019, took effect on 12 October 2019. The same article keeps the outstanding ordinary contributions payable.

Three returns, and three different recipients

Argentina signed a fresh instrument of ratification on 12 May 2023 and handed it over on 16 May 2023 to Venezuela, in what the Argentine treaty register describes as its capacity as the member state guaranteeing the safekeeping of the union's assets. The treaty entered into force for Argentina again on 15 June 2023. Brazil's promulgating decree of 6 April 2023 records its instrument as deposited with the member states of the union, and the treaty in force for Brazil from 6 May 2023. The Colombian foreign ministry recorded that country's return on 5 December 2023, at the first meeting of the Council of Delegates it attended as a member state. Article 26 still names the Government of Ecuador as depositary, and none of the three re-entries is recorded as having been deposited there.

The way in, and what stands in place of expulsion

Article 19 lets other Latin American and Caribbean states be admitted as Associate States by the Council of Heads of State and Government. Article 20 opens the only route from there to full membership: after the fifth year from entry into force, and after four years of associate status, the Council may consider an accession request on a consensual recommendation of the foreign ministers, and the accession protocol enters into force thirty days after every member and the acceding state has ratified it.

Nothing in the treaty expels anybody. What stands in its place is the Additional Protocol on Commitment to Democracy, signed at Georgetown on 26 November 2010 and made an integral part of the treaty by its Article 8. Its Article 4 lets the heads of state, or the foreign ministers in their absence, suspend a state's right to take part in the bodies of UNASUR, close land borders partially or completely, suspend trade, air and maritime traffic, communications and the provision of energy, and press for the same suspension in other organisations. Article 7 ends those measures on the date the affected state is notified that the constitutional democratic order has been confirmed as restored.