"The article deals with a specific approach to international labour regulation: social clauses in the free trade agreements of the US. It analyses the history, institutional design, the practice and the regulatory impact of the pilot agreement, the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), between the US, Canada and Mexico, one of the two NAFTA side agreements. With the NAALC the three governments subscribed to the obligation to promote, enforce and improve social standards within the framework of their national labour legislation. In order to foster compliance with the agreement, international and national institutions were created as well as procedures for cooperation and complaints. Procedures of conflict regulation include sanction mechanisms. Based on the findings of an empirical research project, the article focuses on the practices and the effects of the NAALC. It outlines some specific problems of the NAALC: the institutional weakness of the international organisation, the low intensity intergovernmental game of cooperation and conflict strategies; the disillusionment of the actors of civil society. Finally it draws some more general conclusions about the regulatory approach of social clauses. "

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