On September 4, 2022, Chile will vote whether to ratify or reject a new constitutional text prepared by the Constitutional Convention over the course of a year. Made possible by the massive mobilizations that erupted in October 2019, the Chilean constitutional process is a historic moment of international interest.

If the text is ratified, it will put an end to the constitution imposed by the civil-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which installed a neoliberal model administered by the state, subsequently reducing fundamental social rights, privatizing entire sectors of economic activity and subjecting the vast majority of the population to escalating precarity. This model would later be expanded and replicated throughout the globe, with Chile serving as both example and showcase.

After 40 years under neoliberalism, Chile is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Human and fundamental rights are routinely violated by the state, the exploitation of land and natural resources has led to the creation of sacrifice zones, and indebtedness is a requirement for daily survival. Over the course of these 40 years, we have watched as large, diverse and persistent mobilizations for social rights have arisen in Chile, including the struggles of students, socio-environmentalists, indigenous peoples and feminists. These movements have directly questioned the neoliberal system, its policies of precarity and its exploitation of the land. Today, their demands for justice, equality and dignity have inspired the transformative proposals embodied in the text developed by the Constitutional Convention.

This constitutional process represents a historic moment as it both exposes the limits of the neoliberal system and highlights the pursuit of new social alternatives. This project is particularly important today, as we can see that the global crisis of capitalism is once again impacting those who are most impoverished, while the intensification of environmental crises calls for substantial changes in development models. The Chilean constitutional process can serve as a model democratic solution to these crises, since it was developed through a participatory and parity process and opens the door for profound social democratization.

Among the many important advances proposed within the new constitution, we would like to highlight the following: sexual and reproductive rights, in particular the right to decide regarding the voluntary interruption of pregnancy; the right to a life free of gender violence; progress towards a judicial system with a gender perspective and intersectional and human rights approach; recognition of plurinationality and interculturality; inclusive and parity democracy; territorial and environmental rights, such as the recognition of water as a non-tradable common good protected from seizure; the rights of nature, such as the protection of water, glaciers, biodiversity, wetlands, native forests and soil; the recognition of the climate and ecological crises we are experiencing and the responsibility of the state to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to the associated risks; fundamental social rights inaccessible under the current subsidiary conception of the state, such as the right to healthcare through a public  system with public and solidarity financing; public, free, secular, quality, non-sexist, intercultural and territorially relevant education; the rights to decent and adequate housing, to the city and to the land;  the right to social security through a public social security system; labor rights to guarantee decent jobs; the recognition of domestic and care work, fundamental to the reproduction of life; trade union rights for public and private sector workers; the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike.

At this historic moment, we hope that the new Chilean constitution will be ratified with overwhelming popular support, not only to advance important rights in Chile, but to inspire transformative changes around the world.