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NAFTA 2.0: The Greenest Trade Agreement Ever?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2019

NOEMIE LAURENS ,
ZACHARY DOVE ,
JEAN FREDERIC MORIN Open the ORCID record for JEAN FREDERIC MORIN [Opens in a new window]  and
SIKINA JINNAH
NOEMIE LAURENS
Affiliation:
Laval University, Canada
ZACHARY DOVE
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
JEAN FREDERIC MORIN*
Affiliation:
Laval University, Canada
SIKINA JINNAH
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
*
*Email: jean-frederic.morin@pol.ulaval.ca
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Abstract

The renegotiation of what US President Trump called ‘the worst trade deal ever’ has resulted in the most detailed environmental chapter in any trade agreement in history. The USMCA mentions dozens of environmental issues that its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), overlooked, and in line with contemporary US practice, brings the vast majority of environmental provisions into the core of the agreement, and subjects these provisions to a sanction-based dispute settlement mechanism. It also jettisons two controversial NAFTA measures potentially harmful to the environment. However, this paper argues that the USMCA only makes limited contributions to environmental protection. It primarily replicates most of the environmental provisions included in recent agreements, and only introduces three unprecedented environmental provisions. Moreover, it avoids important issues such as climate change, it does not mention the precautionary principle, and it scales back some environmental provisions related to multilateral environmental agreements.

Type
Snipings
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 659 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © Noemie Laurens et al. 2019 

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Footnotes

The rubric ‘Snipings’ is intended for contributions which, while rigorous, offer early analyses of issues of immediate policy relevance for the multilateral trading system. They would normally be shorter and possibly be less extensively documented than our standard articles with a view to stimulating current debates. They are subject to standard, albeit expedited, refereeing procedures. Further submissions under this heading are welcome.

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