Abstract
The current public debate over globalization was fuelled by the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Protests by numerous groups over the alleged consequences of the agreement, and the media attention they received, raised awareness of the larger process of economic integration of which NAFTA was only a part. This growing awareness coincided with the renewed environmental consciousness that gripped much of the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s, as new information emerged about such trends as global warming and ozone depletion. Inevitably, conflicts arose between the promoters of trade liberalization on the one hand and supporters of environmental protection on the other, prompting policy makers and others to seek ways in which the two goals could be reconciled. NAFTA was the first major international trade agreement in which this reconciliation effort would be tested. The compromise that was struck involved introducing a number of environmental provisions into the NAFTA text, and negotiating a supplemental environmental agreement aimed at offsetting the potential environmental consequences of the trade agreement.
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Notes
See, for example, Dixon Thompson, ‘The NAFTA Parallel Accord on the Environment’, in Stephen J. Randall and Herman W. Konrad (eds), NAFTA in Transition (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1995): 325;
Robert Housman, ‘The North American Free Trade Agreement’s Lessons for Reconciling Trade and the Environment’, Stanford Journal of International Law, 30 (Summer 1994): 379–422;
J. Owen Saunders, ‘NAFTA and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation: A New Model for International Collaboration on Trade and the Environment’, Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 5 (Summer 1994): 273–304;
and Derrick G. Wilkinson, ‘NAFTA and the Environment: Some Lessons for the Next Round of GATT Negotiations’, The World Economy, 12 (May 1994): 395–412.
Daniel C. Esty, Greening the GATT: Trade, Environment, and the Future (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1994): 41
and Steven Globerman, ‘Trade Liberalization and the Environment’, in Steven Globerman and Michael Walker (eds), Assessing NAFTA: A Trinational Analysis (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 1993): 293–314. In particular, the supposed attraction of investment to jurisdictions with lax environmental regulations has been questioned by a number of economic studies.
See the list of studies cited in David Runnalls and Aaron Cosbey, Trade and Sustainable Development: A Survey of the Issues and a New Research Agenda (Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1992): 47–8.
Kym Anderson and Richard Blackhurst, ‘Trade, the Environment, and Public Policy’, in Anderson and Blackhurst (eds), The Greening of World Trade Issues (New York: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1992): 3–22;
Deepak Lai, ‘Trade Blocs and Multilateral Free Trade’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 31 (September 1993): 355–7;
William H. Lash III, ‘Environment and Global Trade’, Society 31 (May/June 1994): 52–8;
Charles S. Pearson, ‘The Trade and Environment Nexus: What Is New Since ‘72?’, in Durwood Zaelke, Paul Orbuch and Robert F. Housman (eds), Trade and the Environment: Law, Economics, and Policy (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993): 23–32;
J. Owen Saunders, ‘Trade and Environment: The Fine Line Between Environmental Protection and Environmental Protectionism’, International Journal 47 (Autumn 1992): 723–50.
Kym Anderson, ‘The Standard Welfare Economics of Policies Affecting Trade and the Environment’, in Anderson and Blackhurst (eds) The Greening of World Trade Issues: 25–48; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), ‘Trade and Environment Report’, in International Trade 1990–91, vol. 1 (Geneva: GATT, 1992);
Patrick Low (ed.), International Trade and the Environment, World Bank Discussion Paper 159 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1992).
Charles Arden-Clarke, The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development, A World Wildlife Fund Discussion Paper (Gland, Switzerland: WWF, 1991);
Hilary F. French, ‘Strengthening International Environmental Governance’, Journal of Environment and Development, 3 (Summer 1994): 59–69.
Steven Shrybman, Selling the Environment Short: An Environmental Assessment of the First Two Years of Free Trade between Canada and the United States (Toronto: Canadian Environmental Law Association, 1991): 12–18.
Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr, For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989);
Herman E. Daly, ‘From Adjustment to Sustainable Development: The Obstacle of Free Trade’, in The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power (San Francisco: Earth Island Press; Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1993): 121–32;
William E. Rees, ‘Pressing Global Limits: Trade as the Appropriation of Carrying Capacity’, in Ted Schrecker and Jean Dalgleish (eds), Growth, Trade and Environmental Values (London, Ontario: Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values, 1994): 29–56.
Pierre Marc Johnson and Andre Beaulieu, The Environment and NAFTA: Understanding and Implementing the New Continental Law (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996): 111–18.
Gilbert R. Winham, ‘Enforcement of Environmental Measures: Negotiating the NAFTA Environmental Side Agreement’, Journal of Environment and Development, 3 (Winter 1994): 39.
Howard J. Wiarda, ‘The U.S. Domestic Politics of the U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement’, in M. Delal Baer and Sidney Weintraub (eds), The NAFTA Debate: Grappling with Unconventional Trade Issues (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994): 117–43.
On the ‘conservative’ approach of the NWF and WWF, see John J. Audley and Eric M. Uslaner, ‘NAFTA, the Environment, and American Domestic Polities’, North American Outlook, 4 (March 1994): 35.
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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Blair, D.J. (1997). Free Trade versus the Environment in NAFTA. In: Schrecker, T. (eds) Surviving Globalism. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25648-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25648-8_10
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