Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
permitting them to act as vehicles for transmitting information from the 'front line' about
environmental problems confronting Mexico.
The process of alliance-building has not been without its di
erent orga-
nizational structures of groups often prove to be a point of contention. In the context of
NAFTA, the fact that, compared with large membership-based organizations from the
USA and Canada, many Mexican groups had fewer o
culties. The di
ff
cial members created tensions
about how wide a group of citizens was being adequately represented. This has been an
issue in the FTAA negotiations too, with trade unions in particular questioning who
NGOs represent, occasionally referring to them in dismissive terms as 'non-governmen-
tal individuals'. NGOs, in turn, have been critical of the overly hierarchical and bureau-
cratic nature of some trade unions (Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2003, p. 69).
In the NAFTA context, both the scale of funding disparities between groups from
Mexico and North America and, particularly, the extent of corporate funds received by
the latter, also created suspicions among some Mexican ENGOs about how far those
groups' agendas were in
fl
uenced by their funding sources - companies that stood to
bene
t from NAFTA (Hogenboom, 1998, pp. 153-4). Despite these issues, united posi-
tions were possible, such as the Common Declaration on NAFTA in 1991 issued by a
group of more than 20 Mexican, US and Canadian ENGOs calling, among other things,
for the inclusion of environmental issues in NAFTA, a review of the environmental e
fi
ff
ects
of NAFTA and the participation of environmental experts in the negotiations.
The point of departure for many of these coalitions was not to claim that NAFTA was
responsible for the social and environmental problems they were experiencing, but that it
was accelerating them. A tactic on the part of NAFTA proponents was to characterize
those against the plan as protectionist, encouraging some groups to demonstrate that they
are not against trade and investment, but rather in favour of di
erent frameworks of rules.
Some went about articulating that alternative in the form of the 'Just and Sustainable
Trade and Development Initiative for North America'. Following inputs from other
groups within the region, the agreement was broadened to become 'Alternatives for the
Americas: Building a Peoples' Hemispheric Agreement'.
The timing of NAFTA also made a di
ff
ff
erence to the issues around which groups mobi-
lized. Signed in 1992 and coming into e
ect in January 1994, the agreement emerged at a
time of high levels of environmental concern on the back of UNCED in 1992. With
global attention focused on the way in which NAFTA mediated the relationship between
trade and environment, greater pressure was felt by those negotiating its terms to
strengthen environmental provisions. By contrast, ongoing negotiations within Mercosur
and FTAA have been, to some extent, overshadowed by economic crises within the region
(Argentina in 2000/2001 and previously Brazil's massive currency devaluation in January
1999) such that the very project of regional integration has been in doubt at key moments
(Carranza, 2003).
Timing also made a di
ff
erence in terms of the types of alliance that were possible.
Coming as it did in the early 1990s, NAFTA managed to bring into loose alliance coali-
tions of labor and environmental interests to combat threats to hard-fought regulation.
As Obach notes (2004, p. 63); 'Although unions and environmentalists had distinct con-
cerns in regard to NAFTA, the common threat the agreement presented created the
impetus for labor-environmental cooperation.' At times working independently, at other
times together, national coalitions were formed that included many of the major labor
ff
