Trade and Development: The rising importance of sustainable development in the trade agenda of Chile

This report examines how Chile incorporates sustainable development, specifically environmental and labor issues, into its trade agreements and foreign direct investment (FDI) policies, while identifying gaps in climate change integration and enforcement.

• Chile has integrated environmental and labor commitments into a significant portion of its trade agreements, though these are absent from its FDI policies. Specifically, 12 of the 19 active trade agreements include environmental commitments and 8 include labor clauses, while FDI regulation contains no clauses regarding sustainable development, labor, environment, or climate change.
• Several drivers have pushed Chile to include environmental and labor aspects in trade negotiations: the desire for coherence with its subscription to multilateral environmental agreements, demands from major trade partners, the goal of reinforcing domestic legislation, and the need to increase international competitiveness by incorporating the environmental dimension into economic internationalization.
• While environmental and labor concerns have been integrated over the last 15 years, climate change is only recently becoming a recognized factor for Chile's public and private sectors. Furthermore, the manufacturing industry faces pressure to shift toward higher value-added production and away from low-transformation natural resources due to rising international climate change standards.
• Compliance with environmental and labor provisions in trade agreements is hindered by domestic deficiencies, such as low unionization and high labor informality. Despite these failures in fulfillment, sanctions have not been applied and are unlikely to be in the near future.
• There is a risk that developed countries may transfer carbon-intensive industries to countries like Chile to reduce their own emissions. Because restricting such FDI is seen as improbable, the report suggests designing economic incentives to direct investment toward prioritized sectors.

APA

Claro,, E. (2009). Trade and Development: The rising importance of sustainable development in the trade agenda of Chile. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/trade-and-development-rising-importance-sustainable-development-trade-agenda

Chicago

Claro,, Edmundo. Trade and Development: The rising importance of sustainable development in the trade agenda of Chile. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2009. https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/trade-and-development-rising-importance-sustainable-development-trade-agenda.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Claro, |first1=Edmundo |title=Trade and Development: The rising importance of sustainable development in the trade agenda of Chile |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=23 April 2009 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/trade-and-development-rising-importance-sustainable-development-trade-agenda |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{claro2009trade, author = {Claro,, Edmundo}, title = {{Trade and Development: The rising importance of sustainable development in the trade agenda of Chile}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2009}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/trade-and-development-rising-importance-sustainable-development-trade-agenda}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }