Protection of Fundamental Rights in Latin American FTAs and MERCOSUR : An Exploratory Agenda

Latin America is a fertile ground for exploring issues of trade and human rights, but relatively little seems to be written about human rights in economic integration processes across Latin America. This article is an attempt at remedying this. It is an exploratory piece that highlights some of the major issues across a wide range of Free Trade Agreements involving Latin American countries, with particular emphasis on MERCOSUR. The authors conclude that in spite of Latin America’s openness to international human rights discourses, pragmatism seems to dominate trade negotiations. While human rights considerations are slowly seeping into trade negotiations, this seems to happen largely because of pressure exerted by outside actors. There appears to be a lack of true endogenous push towards human rights and trade inside the bloc