Regional integration: a promising tool to advance the international decent work agenda?

In this chapter, we assess whether regional integration processes provide more promising supports for the agenda’s advancement. Regional policy frameworks may be more precise and constraining, but this does not mean that they are always more socially oriented. In exploring their impact, we outline and compare the policy direction of regional integration frameworks in the labour policy field and the transnational activism that they have triggered. These are the European Union (EU); the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), and the Dominican Republic, Central America, and United States Agreement (CAFTA-DR); and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community.