'LEGAL ASPECTS REGARDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF LABOUR REGULATIONS ON BILATERAL FTAS: PRESENTING THE CHILEAN INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK AS AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL FOR LATIN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT'

There is a great challenge on our contemporary society, which is to conciliate the global trade liberalization with the establishment of an efficient labour protection network, both on developed and on developing countries. The primary scope of this research is to bring up an analysis of the main direct and indirect impacts and the ‘effet utile’ of the inclusion of labour regulations on several contemporary bilateral free-trade agreements, in particular through a comparison concerning the dichotomy between the American pragmatic trade policies and the European idealist conceptions on this field. This investigation does not intend to discuss the merit of possible commercial advantages of FTAs, but endeavour to acquaint their consequences on the labour area, making efforts to ensure worker’s rights protection without bringing up protectionist measures that could embarrass an already complex international commercial system. Furthermore, this study aims to present the Chilean successful economic integration model, which for more than three decades combines trade liberalization and social advances through the establishment of significant FTAs with strategic trade partners, and must be understood as an efficient legal, political and economical framework for other Latin American States. On a post-habermasian international paradigm with deep inspiration on the transmodernity proposed by Dussel, those considerations assume a crucial importance, and the concrete outcomes brought by the Chilean economic agreements must be used as good examples for a Continent where, unfortunately, rhetorical skills still prevail among pragmatism and where there is a disturbing dissemination of an ideology typical of authoritarian, populist and anachronistic governments.