From supranational to intertribal - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 63

North American Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA seeks to create a continental free trade market by eliminating the majority
of tariffs on products traded between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. North
America became the largest trade bloc in the world - in terms of combined gross
domestic product of its members - when the members signed the agreement in
1992. Although the agreement primarily deals with trade disputes, a provision -
Article 2004 - also provides for disputes dealing with environmental issues.
The provision aimed to ensure that each member country knew about, and
agreed to, the potential environmental hazards associated with trade issues.
Specifically, the provisions allowed for the creation of panels of environmental
experts, the submission of scientific advice, and the inclusion of public commentary
(Marchak, 1998, p. 142). In the pre-9/11 discourse on globalization and the dis-
appearance of borders - exemplified by entrepreneurs such as Ohmae (1995) - it
was perhaps easier to imagine (and enact) a tri-national environmental agreement.
North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation
NAFTA was the first major international trade agreement to include a separate
accord for environmental protection. The North American Agreement on
Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) - NAFTA's side agreement - aims to help
prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts and promote effective
enforcement of environmental law (CEC, 2013). Subsequently, NAAEC created
the tri-national Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and two
binational organizations focusing on the Mexico-U.S. border: the North American
Development Bank (NADBank) and the Border Environmental Cooperation
Commission (BECC) (Diaz-Bautista et al. , 2008). The Montreal-based CEC is one
of the primary governance mechanisms to address transboundary environmental
issues under NAFTA. The CEC was established “to investigate allegations of non-
enforcement of national environmental laws and for monitoring the adverse
environmental impacts of the NAFTA trade system” (Mumme, 1999, p. 2) and
to “address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and
environmental conflicts, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental
law” (CEC, 2013).
Structure of NAFTA's Commission for Environmental Cooperation
The CEC complements NAFTA by incorporating provisions relating to the
resolution of environmental concerns arising from free trade (Marchak, 1998;
Norman and Melious, 2008; Healy et al. , 2014). The formal obligations of the
countries include “periodic publication of reports, education, scientific research,
and assessment of environmental effects and promotion of environmental goals”
(Marchak, 1998, p. 144).
The CEC comprises the Council, the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC),
and the Secretariat. The Council is the CEC's main governing body, which includes