The cross-border social dialogue dimension of this Free Trade Agreement (FTA), in force since 1 January 2021, relates to the FTA’s Chapter 13 on Trade and Sustainable Development, which provides for the establishment of a “Joint Civil Society Forum” tasked to “conduct a dialogue on sustainable development aspects of this Agreement” and to ensure the proper implementation of the Chapter.
The Forum features participation of representatives of civil society organizations from the partnering countries, including national employers’ and workers’ organizations’ members of the Domestic Advisory Groups (DAG) in the two countries. According to the agreement, DAGs are composed of “independent representative organizations of civil society in a balanced representation of employers and workers organizations, non-governmental organizations as well as other relevant stakeholders”, and are mandated to advise on the implementation of Chapter 13.
The cross-border forum shall convene once a year, with a view to allowing its members to have an update on the implementation of this Chapter and to express views and opinions which shall be publicly available.
More broadly, Chapter 13 of the FTA commits the Parties, among other things, to ”promote the development of international trade in a way that is conducive to full and productive employment and decent work for all” and to respect, promote and realize in law and in practice, in their entire territory, the internationally recognised core labour standards, as embodied in the ILO fundamental conventions. The Parties also commit to “consider the ratification of the remaining priority and other conventions that are classified as up-to-date by the ILO”. They also recognize the importance of working together on trade-related aspects of environmental and labour policies.