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Published in Spring 2001
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Summit of the Americas: Lessons from NAFTA on trade and environment
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As 34 countries prepare to discuss the creation of the largest free trade area in history, Pierre Marc Johnson reviews the relevance of CEC’s experience in linking environment and trade.
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Read related article: Reflecting on the CEC experience
When NAFTA came into force on at the beginning of January 1994, many analysts and policymakers considered it the "greenest" trade agreement ever concluded. Indeed, with its main treaty set of environmental provisions and safeguards, its parallel agreement on environmental cooperation (NAAEC), and the creation of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), NAFTA embraced the trade and sustainability connection and created a space for continuous dialogue and analysis of this connection. At the same time, it opened channels for the meaningful and constructive involvement of civil society in trade policy.
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| Photo: IISD |
| Pierre Marc Johnson | That same year, the decision was made at the First Summit of the Americas in Miami to initiate a negotiation process that would lead to the creation in 2005 of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA would be the largest free trade area in history, with a combined GDP of US$11 trillion and a total population of 800 million in 34 countries.
The formal FTAA negotiation process was launched at the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, in April 1998. The FTAA will have much in common with NAFTA, both in the scope and breadth of trade liberalization it aims to achieve. It goes beyond the World Trade Organization's (WTO) liberalization process in the inclusion of such sectors as investment, competition policy, and government procurement, and in the nature of its participants, which come from various levels of development. In that context, many issues that were raised at the time of NAFTA's negotiations remain prominent, including the trade and environmental sustainability connection, and the involvement of civil society in the negotiation process. Disagreement among the 34 countries has prevented meaningful consideration of these issues up to this point.
Lessons learned from the NAFTA/NAAEC experience in the last seven years have the potential to inform policy makers and allow them to reach broad consensus on these issues. Three major lessons that are relevant to the FTAA process can be drawn from the NAFTA experience:
- Civil society can be a constructive force if meaningfully engaged. The key is to support democracy, transparency, and effectiveness.
- Addressing sustainability issues in a trade agreement is not a zero-sum game. It is beneficial to trade, environment, and development. Triple-win policies have to be identified and put into place.
- Establishing a broader environmental cooperation regime is a key strategy to ease trade/environment tensions and generate sustainable growth when countries with different levels of development liberalize trade.
It is clear in the post-Seattle context that CEC expertise and experience is a key asset in the process of building bridges with civil society and addressing trade and sustainability issues. As civil society is mobilizing for the Third Summit of the Americas to be held in Quebec City (April 20-22), trade negotiators are faced with the prospects of Seattle-type protests. This concern will surely be in their minds when they have their pre-Summit ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires in early April.
By its innovative and rigorous work, CEC has allowed civil society, the business community, academia, and governments to enter into a continuous dialogue in North America. This constructive relationship led to the first North American Symposium on Understanding the Linkages between Trade and Environment last October in Washington DC, the results of which were highlighted in an article in the previous issue of Trio ("Public forum sheds light on environmental effects of trade").
Such a dialogue now has to be built at the hemispheric level. A first step in that direction will be the Hemispheric Trade and Sustainability Symposium that will be held in Quebec City on April 17-19, in parallel with the Summit of the Americas 2001. The Symposium's goal is to provide a constructive, policy-oriented and knowledge-based open forum for dialogue on trade and sustainability issues. Some 50 specialists on trade and sustainability in the Americas and 150 participants from civil society, government, industry and academia will take part. As a partner organization, CEC will bring its considerable expertise and experience to the discussions. It is my hope that civil society, governments, the business community and academia will seize the opportunity presented by the Quebec Summit to initiate a hemispheric dialogue on trade and sustainability that will inform policymakers as we approach the FTAA 2005 target.
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