The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation after Ten Years: Lessons About Institutional Structure and Public Participation in Governance
18 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2005
Abstract
A little more than ten years ago, the three North American countries, Canada, Mexico, and the United States, adopted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and companion agreements intended to address environmental and labor issues (the NAAEC and the NAALC). This article is about the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the institution it creates, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The CEC is an innovative international environmental institution in three important ways. It is the first international organization created to address the environmental aspects of economic integration. It is a regional environmental institution with powerful tools and almost unlimited jurisdiction. And it provides unprecedented opportunities for participation by civil society at the international level.
The article's primary focus is on the structure of the CEC and on the opportunities the CEC provides for public participation in governance. The article focuses in particular on the CEC's citizen submissions mechanism, an innovative process that empowers citizens of any of the three North American countries to file submissions in which the citizens assert that a Party to the Agreement is failing to enforce its environmental laws effectively. The article considers expectations for the process, and perspectives on the performance of the process to date, among other topics.
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