Greening the Americas: NAFTA's lessons for hemispheric trade

Abstract

Attention to environmental issues is vital if the full potential economic benefits of international trade are to be realized. Greening the Americas offers a number of analytically rigorous proposals to ensure that economic integration in the Western Hemisphere proceeds in an environmentally sustainable and politically sensible manner.The chapters review the history of the environmental negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), explore the treaty's economic and environmental impacts, and draw lessons that can be applied to the ongoing Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations. Greening the Americas analyzes in detail NAFTA's environmental elements, highlighting those provisions that should be included in future agreements and those that should be amended or dropped. The book includes contributions from a diverse set of participants in the debate about how to link environmental policy and trade agreements. The perspectives range from the broadly optimistic about environmental effects of trade and trade liberalization to a more pessimistic view of the economic and social effects of open markets and economic integration. What unites all of the contributions is a commitment to engage constructively in the policy dialogue over how best to integrate trade and environmental policy making in the Americas.

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