Mercosur is South America's leading trading bloc. Known as the Common Market of the South, it aims to bring about the free movement of goods, capital, services and people among its member states.
It has been likened to the European Union but, with an area of 12m sq km (4.6m sq miles), it is four times as big. The bloc's combined market encompasses more than 250m people and accounts for more than three-quarters of the economic activity on the continent.
Mercosur was set up in March 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay under the Treaty of Asuncion. The 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto gave the body a wider international status and formalised a customs union.
Brazil and Argentina are Mercosur's economic giants. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are associate members; they can join free-trade agreements but remain outside the bloc's customs union. Moves to include Chile as a full member were suspended after Santiago signed a free-trade deal with the US in 2002.
Mercosur tariff policies regulate imports and exports and the bloc can arbitrate in trade disputes among its members.
In the longer term, Mercosur aims to create a continent-wide free-trade area, and the creation of a Mercosur development bank has been mooted.
The Mercosur presidency rotates between member states every six months.
Mercosur institutions include the policy-making Common Market Council and the Common Market Group, which implements policies and monitors compliance with the council's decisions.
A Mercosur parliament was inaugurated in December 2006. It began meeting in May 2007 in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo. Initially, the parliament will have no power other than persuasion.
Mercosur has been riven by disputes among its members. When Brazil's car industry became increasingly competitive, aided by the devaluation of its currency in 1999, Argentina responded by imposing tariffs on Brazilian steel imports. The spat was resolved in December 2000 when the two countries signed a bilateral agreement to end the crisis.
In 2006 Argentina and the bloc's smallest country Uruguay clashed over plans to build two large pulp mills along the border - the biggest foreign investments Uruguay had ever attracted. Argentina said it feared pollution and the impact on tourism and fishing.
The matter went to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled in favour of Uruguay. Argentina pledged to continue its fight against the mills.
The bloc's smaller members, Paraguay and Uruguay, complain of restricted access to markets in Argentina and Brazil and have sought to set up bilateral trade deals outside Mercosur. The organisation's rules forbid this.
Critics say Mercosur is becoming politicised and is moving away from its free-trade origins. Talks to secure a trade accord with the EU have stalled, with farm subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods being among the stumbling blocks. Negotiations on a planned, US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas are similarly mired, with some Mercosur leaders rejecting US free-market policies.
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