Cato on Facebook
Cato on Twitter
Cato on YouTube
Cato RSS1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842 0200
Fax (202) 842 3490
Contact Us
November 17, 1993
Policy Analysis no. 198
NAFTA's Green Accords: Sound and Fury Signifying Little
by Jerry Taylor
Jerry Taylor is director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute.
Jerry Taylor is director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute.
Published on November 17, 1993
PRINT PAGE
CITE THIS
Share with your friends:
The North American Free Trade Agreement has come under well-deserved fire from a coalition of free-trade conservatives for introducing environmental policy considerations into international trade relations. Although the green language of NAFTA is certainly objectionable on its face, some of the free traders' warnings about national sovereignty and the upward harmonization of environmental law are clearly overwrought and premised upon a fundamental misunderstanding of NAFTA.
Although the treaty encourages high environmental standards and the harmonization of environmental statutes, the sovereign right of nations to set their own levels of environmental protection is repeatedly and explicitly reaffirmed in the treaty. The supranational bureaucracy established to oversee the enforcement of domestic environmental law is an intentionally cumbersome body whose mission is both tightly controlled and narrowly defined. And the environmental goals and objectives outlined in the treaty are just that--goals that for the most part few would argue with. The means of achieving those goals are left for each country to decide.
Neither the Clinton administration nor the environmental community, however, believes that NAFTA will grant the federal government or international bureaucracies the power to impose a new green policy agenda on signatories to the treaty. Indeed, no reasonable reading of the treaty warrants the concerns expressed by conservative anti-NAFTA critics. Although some of NAFTA's environmental language is, in fact, vague and full of potential mischief, the clauses at issue are hermetically sealed within a wall of qualifications, exceptions, loopholes, and countermanding language.
View this Policy Analysis in HTML
Share with your friends:
© 2009 The Cato Institute
Please send comments to webmaster
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
NEW BOOKS
Financial Fiasco
An easily accessible work on the economic crisis, the book guides readers through a world of irresponsible behavior, showing how many of the "solutions" being implemented are repeating the mistakes that caused the crisis.
Mad About Trade
This much-needed antidote to a rising tide of protectionist sentiment in the United States offers a spirited defense of free trade and tells the underreported story of how a more global U.S. economy has created better jobs and higher living standards for American workers.
The Dirty Dozen
New in Paperback
This non-lawyer's guide to the worst Supreme Court decisions of the modern era reveals the ongoing impact these cases have on free speech, economic liberty, property rights, private contracts, and much more.
Cato Supreme Court Review
Now in its eighth year, this acclaimed annual publication brings together leading national scholars to analyze the Supreme Court's most important decisions from the term just ended and preview the year ahead.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
New Cato Journal Issue
Cato Journal is America's leading free-market public policy journal. The current issue is a valuable resource for scholars concerned with questions of public policy, yet it is written and edited to be accessible to the interested lay reader.
Feeds for Cato events: