Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and environmental actors such as the Citizens' Trade Campaign and the Alliance for
Responsible Trade.
Although trade negotiations become focal points from cross-sectoral and transna-
tional mobilizing, it should be made clear that many groups also chose not to engage
with trade policy processes. This was either because they are not seen to be relevant to
a group's core activities, because
nancial and/or technical barriers meant that mobiliz-
ing around these issues was not a realistic possibility, or as a conscious strategy of rejec-
tion of the aims and conduct of the process: in other words a positive choice to remain
on the outside. There also often appears to be a divide between capital-city-based groups
that are more geared to addressing national and international policy agendas, and envi-
ronmental and
campesino
groups based in rural areas that attach a lower priority to
these agendas. As Hogenboom notes in the context of Mexico, 'Their distance from the
political centre of Mexico city, a lack of
fi
nance and experience, and poor access to
information about NAFTA discouraged their participation in the NAFTA debate'
(1998, p. 146).
Di
fi
erences in perspective regarding the relationship between trade and environment
played out between groups in the context of NAFTA within each of the countries party
to the agreement. Similar divisions have also emerged in the context of the FTAA dis-
cussions, with some groups adopting a critical position within the HSA and other groups
investing in e
ff
orts to identify and advance 'win-win' linkages between environmental pro-
tection measures and trade liberalization.
One element of this strategy of engagement has been to build bridges with industry.
Audley (1997, p. 83) notes in the case of the National Wildlife Federation, for example, a
policy 'of constructive engagement with industry elites convinced them that a dialogue
between business and responsible environmental organisations could result in e
ff
ective
changes in investment patterns and improve the chances for environmental quality
through trade'. Sometimes the strategy is aimed at shaping the negotiating stance of gov-
ernment. In Mexico in relation to NAFTA, 30 ENGOs organized themselves in the Union
of Environmental Groups, which sought to foster positive relations with the Mexican gov-
ernment in order to have a say in Mexico's o
ff
cial position on environmental safeguards
in NAFTA. Despite their insider status, aided by the fact that one of the Unión de Grupos
Ambientalistas (UGAM's) advisers was a prominent environmental lawyer, they faced
many of the same barriers to e
ff
ective participation as outsiders in terms of poor access
to o
cial information and the lack of state capacity to handle inputs from civil society.
Their input, along with that of organizations such as the Group of Hundred, was
restricted to some 'side-room' discussions during negotiations on the supplemental envi-
ronmental agreement.
The extent to which groups mobilize around trade agreements seems to re
ect not
only the formal political and institutional opportunity structures, but also their sense of
where their campaigning energies are most likely to yield change. The lack of spaces for
engagement with Mercosur and the deliberate undermining of its environmental provi-
sions has led some groups to abandon it and focus their attentions on FTAA, which
is in any case potentially much more far-reaching in economic and environmental im-
pact. This 'strategic turn' perhaps also re
fl
ects a broader power play in which the USA
is seeking to outmanoeuvre Mercosur by speeding up negotiations towards FTAA
(Teubal and Rodriguez, 2002).
fl
