This article describes the historical background of the local autonomy in Europe, and its evolution towards the Charter of the European local autonomy.
With this conceptual framework it is possible to understand the complexity of the concept and the reason why some countries took different approaches to local autonomy. This can be concluded from the study of German and American cases. Moreover through this comparison it was possible to identify that in the contemporary world there is a trend towards strengthening local autonomy, especially in federal systems. The second part of the article analyses Colombia´s local development, its historical basis and the current trend. In spite of the occidental tendency, Colombia´s Constitution favors a unitary tradition that makes possible only a very limited form of local self-administration.