THE LEGISLATIVE ROLE IN THE REGIONAL INTEGRATION PROCESSES IN THE AMERICAS: An Overview of the Chara

Although the Legislative role in Hemispheric Integration embraces the two chambers, the Lower Chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, the House of Representatives, the Upper Chamber, and the Senate in the two considered countries, we decided to limit the scope of our analysis to the lower chambers in both Brazil and in the US. [...] The President of the Republic or the Ministry of State (depending of the category of international instrument) send the official message to the President of the Chamber, explaining the importance of the approval of the international agreement for the betterment of the country. [...] Starting from the perception that one of the difficulties of the Legislative was the time span within the arrival of the Message from the Executive Branch and the final decision by the Congress, the Chamber and the Senate decided to follow the integration process more accurately and in a dynamic basis. [...] The text stipulates that the JPC is now part of the institutional structure of MERCOSUR, composed also by the Council of the Common Market, the Group of the Common Market, the Commerce Committee of MERCOSUR, the Consultative Social- Economic Forum and the Administrative Secretariat of the MERCOSUR. [...] Intense because of the reduced time span allowed to adopt a decision in function of the number of matters in line, the urgence of the decisions and the accelerated pace of the technology combined with the growing demands of the society.