The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Spanish: Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños; Portuguese: Comunidade de Estados Latino-Americanos e Caribenhos) was formally constituted at the Caracas Summit on 2–3 December 2011, succeeding the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC). It brings together all 33 sovereign states of the Americas south of the Rio Grande, plus the Caribbean, and pointedly excludes the United States and Canada.
CELAC is not a treaty-based organization. It has no permanent secretariat, no headquarters, and no binding decision-making powers. It operates through a rotating pro tempore presidency held by a member state for one year, a Troika of past, current, and incoming presidencies, and a system of summits and ministerial meetings. Decisions are adopted by consensus and take the form of political declarations rather than legally binding instruments.
Its stated purposes include deepening regional political concertation, advancing integration on development, infrastructure, and social policy, and projecting a unified Latin American and Caribbean voice in global forums. CELAC has established formal dialogue mechanisms with the European Union (the EU-CELAC Summits, first held in Santiago in January 2013), China (the China-CELAC Forum, launched in Beijing in January 2015), Russia, India, and others.
The bloc has experienced significant political volatility. Brazil withdrew under President Jair Bolsonaro in January 2020 and rejoined in 2023 under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Argentina suspended its participation under President Javier Milei in 2024. Ideological divides between left- and right-leaning governments have repeatedly stalled common positions on Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
CELAC is often contrasted with the Organization of American States (OAS), which includes the US and Canada and is treaty-based, and with UNASUR, the South American bloc that fragmented in the late 2010s. For MUN and IR researchers, CELAC is best understood as a concertation forum rather than an integration project on the EU or Mercosur model.
Example
At the 7th CELAC Summit in Buenos Aires on 24 January 2023, Brazil's President Lula announced his country's return to the bloc after a three-year absence under the Bolsonaro government.