Regional Cooperation on Labour Rights and Migrant Workers’ Rights: South America Compared

The forces of regionalization and globalization expose workers, in South America and elsewhere, to the dynamics of the international economy and global competition. For their employment, wages and rights, both opportunities and threats are to be expected, to an important extent depending on their mobility, both sector-wise and geographically. These changing circumstances clearly pose a series of challenges to national socio-economic policies, including labour policies, because the limitation of national jurisdictions and policy spaces is increasingly problematic in an age of global economic dynamics. For reasons related to scale, regional socio-economic policy coordination and /or the design and implementation of genuine regional socio-economic policies might be a way to respond to these challenges.