The impact of NAFTA on Mexico's environmental policy

After more than eight years since NAFTA's introduction, it is now possible to assess the long-term effects of the NAFTA and to move beyond mere assertions regarding its impacts. The impact of liberal trade on the environment has continued to generate controversy and debate. There has been surprisingly little attention, however, centered on the role of governmental choice in effecting the environmental outcomes of expanded trade.; The following study seeks to contribute to the understanding of NAFTA's impact by analyzing Mexican environmental policy: (1) prior to the onset of NAFTA negotiations; (2) during the NAFTA negotiations; and, (3) after the introduction of the NAFTA. After developing an analytical baseline by which to compare the nature and content of Mexican environmental policy, the following study will present evidence of NAFTA's direct and indirect impacts, resulting primarily from the activity of a set of institutions geared toward reconciling economic and environmental objectives; most notably the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission, The North American Development Bank, and the Border XXI Program.; Mexico's record of environmental protection has drawn the heaviest criticism among the three NAFTA members, due less to the formal content of its environmental laws, than for its apparent unwillingness and/or capacity to implement and enforce those laws. Thus, the impact of the NAFTA and its affiliated environmental institutions can arguably be gauged by their ability to alter the policy space surrounding environmental issues by increasing the costs of a deficient, under-enforced environmental policy.; Mexico has significantly improved its record of implementation and enforcement of environmental policy since the introduction of the NAFTA. I will argue that the NAFTA and its affiliated environmental institutions, through a combination of incentives and disincentives have had a decisive and determinable impact on Mexican environmental policy. The NAFTA, ultimately, represents an external shock to the Mexican policy environment, whose analytical weight arguably must be measured against domestic sources of policy change. Due to the relative weakness of the Mexican judiciary and legislature as democratic institutions, the NAFTA and its affiliated institutions can be credited with providing the major impetus to environmental policy change in Mexico.