ABSTRACT
Open borders can facilitate a greater sense of continental integration that has been hard to achieve, but yet remains important to increase economic growth. This chapter examines the evolving concepts of regional public goods (RPGs) and the application of these to the reality of South America. Open borders have become a form of RPG precisely because the nature of globalism has shifted from a world solely inhabited by nation-states to a world where nonstate actors are engaging in actions that were once the sole domain of sovereign actors. South America's rich history of support for multilateral organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) has given way to a new regionalism to create the strong foundation needed to use open borders as a mechanism for regional integration. Trends in multilateral organizations to consider open borders are a first step toward regional integration.
