[CMI-Chiapas] Americas Program | 10 Years of NAFTA'S CEC in Mexico

[IRC Communications]

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What's New at the AmericasProgram
“A New World of Ideas, Analysis and Policy Options”
http://www.americaspolicy.org/

December 17, 2004
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New from the IRC's Americas Program:

10 Years of NAFTA'sCommission on Environmental Cooperation in Mexico
Edited by: Laura Carlsen and TalliNauman

To assure passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 
U.S. Congress, the three countries forged a separate agreement, the North American 
Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. This agreement created the trilateral 
Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The CEC is led by a council 
made up of Canada’s Minister of Environment, Mexico’s Secretary of the Environment 
and the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. 
As the CEC celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, critics and boosters 
examine its unique role in analyzing and directing the relationship between 
trade and environment. 

The IRC Americas Program has published many articles over the past few years 
assessing the work of the Environmental Commission and exploring the impact 
of trade on aspects of the environment. The Commission has sparked controversy 
since its inception. Supporters state that NAFTA’sside agreement on the environment 
and the formation of the CEC have been critical tools in dealing with specific 
environmental problems resulting from economic integration. Detractors say 
that the CEC has been a mostly ineffective body that has served to legitimize 
the negative environmental effects of NAFTA’s trade and investment clauses. 

In the interests of opening up a strategic dialogue and thinking about the 
nexus between trade and environment, we offer four summaries of recent essays 
and reports, followed by points for discussion. The first, by Mexican environmentalist 
and former member of the CEC'sPublic Advisory Committee Laura Silván, offers 
a generally positive view of the Commission in an essay entitled "Resolving 
Environmental Problems and Fostering Citizen Participation." Marisa Jacott 
of Greenpeace/Mexico counters with a more critical perspective on the Commission's 
work that concludes that subordination to the trade agreement and the lack 
of binding powers render the CEC ineffective in carrying out its mandate. We 
also provide a summary of the ten-year evaluation commissioned by the CEC and 
finish with a list of alternative proposals for incorporating the environment 
into economic integration processes.

Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Program (online at http://www.americaspolicy.org) 
of the InterhemisphericResourceCenter (IRC, online at http://www.irc-online.org) 
and TalliNauman is the IRC’s editor at large and Americas Program associate.

See full article online at:  
http://www.irc-online.org/content/dialogue/2004/01.php
 
With printer-friendly PDF version at:
http://www.irc-online.org/content/pdf/01.cec.pdf
 
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Analysis, and Policy Options.

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InterhemisphericResourceCenter (IRC)
http://www.irc-online.org
Siri D. Khalsa
Outreach Coordinator
Email: communications at irc-online.org


 

Siri D. Khalsa
Communications Coordinator
Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
siri at irc-online.org

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