NAFTAS REPERCUSSIONS - IS GREEN TRADE POSSIBLE

Environmental considerations played a critical role in the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its related agreements and activities.(1) During the course of negotiations, the NAFTA package came to include many environmental components, including environment-sensitive provisions in NAFTA itself; three other major international agreements on environment, labor, and U.S.-Mexican border finance; and increased attention to environmental cooperation among the three countries, particularly between the United States and Mexico. Even the negotiation process itself was influenced by the growing importance given to environmental protection. Almost all of the environmental aspects of the NAFTA package are unprecedented, particularly in the context of a trade agreement. The negotiation of NAFTA presented an opportunity to elaborate in a trade agreement the increased awareness by the public and policy-makers of the importance and complexity of the relationship between environmental protection and international trade. The environmental aspects of NAFTA thus present an extremely important stage in the ongoing integration of environmental considerations into trade policymaking as well as into policymaking more generally.