Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
represented. Members of the public are required to submit a request to speak at a public
meeting 15 days in advance, and the board retains full discretion regarding who can speak
at meetings.
The environmental side agreement of NAFTA also creates a Joint Public Advisory
Committee (JPAC) to the NACEC (North American Commission for Environmental
Cooperation) designed to provide input from NGOs and the private sector to the
NACEC's governing council (Fisher, 2002). The JPAC normally consists of 15 members,
with each nation appointing an equal number of representatives, although it currently
stands at 14 with one fewer representative from Canada than the other NAFTA members.
The committee seeks public input and recommendations to help determine the advice
it provides to the Environmental Council. According to Fisher (2002, p. 189), 'By con-
sistently working to seek public input and incorporate the insights and expertise of
civil society into its activities and projects, the NACEC's initiatives have been greatly
enhanced.' Articles 14 and 15 of the side agreement provide that any citizen or NGO from
the parties may send to the secretariat a submission asserting that a party is failing
e
ectively to enforce its environmental law in order to promote exports or investment. In
response, the NACEC's secretariat may be obliged to provide a factual record, though
without legal value or the ability to trigger trade sanctions.
Despite these institutional innovations and the degree of interest the agreement gener-
ated, and continues to generate, NAFTA has been criticized for its top-down approach
and lack of consultation with civil society in the negotiation process. A key lesson from
this experience has been that merely having the mechanisms in place does not mean that
they are used e
ff
ectively. To date (from 1995 to 2007), the NACEC had received just 61
citizen submissions, 12 of which were under review and 49 had been closed, many because
they did not meet the established criteria.
Resources, perceptions of return on e
ff
ort and shifts in strategic priorities mean that
the extent to which groups make use of or engage these mechanisms will change over time.
For example, since the heyday of NAFTA, leading environmental groups such as the
Sierra Club have shifted their focus away from daily participation in the activities of trade
bodies and sought to focus their attention instead on raising the level of interest in trade
policy among their members. Lack of resources, even among the accommodating groups,
inhibits further participation. Costly engagement is more di
ff
cult to justify in a context
of pervading frustration with lack of leverage in the process. The concern about lack of
progress is compounded by the proliferation in the number of forums where dialogue
takes place, each requiring time, personnel and money, and the strong sense that the
window of political opportunity to advance trade policy reform has closed.
Mercosur
In comparison with NAFTA, Mercosur's mechanisms of participation are underdevel-
oped. While ambitious in its economic and commercial dimensions, Mercosur is weak in
the construction of political dimensions that facilitate participation and representation of
citizens that make up its member states. This is despite the fact that the Agreement of
Florianopolis, the Environmental Framework Agreement in Mercosur, spells out in two
places the importance members attach to civil society participation 'in the treatment of
environmental questions' and more generally 'in the protection of the environment and
the use of sustainable natural resources' (Decision No. 2/01-Annex; preamble and chapter
