For Latin American and Caribbean countries, regional integration is a tool to expand their margins of autonomy and promote economic development with social inclusion. From the events that led to independence to the present day, the ideals of unity and integration have been present in many men and women who conceived emancipatory national-regional political projects and sought to form sovereign and developed nations. The Common Market of the South - or as it is commonly known, Mercosur - is one of those regional political projects that seeks to build a supportive, inclusive region, open to citizen participation and that guarantees the right of peoples to development.