Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 9 • Number 6 • 23rd February 2005
US, CAFTA-DR Sign FTA-Related Environmental Accords
On 18 February, the US, five Central American nations and the Dominican Republic signed the two environmental agreements associated with the free trade agreement (Central American Free Trade Agreement-Dominican Republic, CAFTA-DR) that the seven countries concluded in August 2004.
The seven governments — Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, in addition to the US and the DR — signed an ‘Environmental Cooperation Agreement’ and an ‘Understanding Establishing a Secretariat to Administer Public Submissions.’ The former outlines a framework for environmental cooperation among countries to improve environmental protection in the region. The latter establishes a secretariat charged with administering a submissions process through which members of the public will be able to complain if they believe that one of the governments is not adequately upholding its environmental laws. This is the first US free trade deal to incorporate such a submissions process in the actual text of the agreement — the public submission process associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is included in a side accord on environmental concerns.
The environment chapter of the CAFTA-DR agreement recognises the "right of each Party to establish its own levels of domestic environmental protection and environmental development policies and priorities, and to adopt or modify accordingly its environmental laws and policies." It also specifies that "each Party shall ensure that its laws and policies provide for and encourage high levels of environmental protection, and shall strive to continue to improve those laws and policies." It also establishes a ministerial-level Environmental Affairs Council that is supposed to meet regularly to review progress under the environmental provisions of the agreement.
Parties’ obligation to effectively enforce their environmental legislation is ultimately enforceable through the agreement’s dispute settlement process.
Some US legislators from the opposition Democratic Party have criticised the CAFTA-DR treaty for not doing enough to protect the environment.
In a January letter to US lawmakers, a group of Central American non-governmental organisations — including the Salvadoran conservation group Salvanatura, Costa Rica’s Foundation for the Restoration of Nature, and the Honduran Network of Ecologists for Sustainable Development — praised the accord’s environmental provisions as "a positive precedent in the efforts for environmental protection in Central America.”
Other civil society trade observers have cautioned that CAFTA-DR environmental provisions could backfire against the developing country parties to the accord. They argue that the obligation to enforce environmental legislation is not linked to any commitments to technical assistance from the US, and thus, countries could end up open to sanction for failing to effectively enforce environmental legislation they never had the capacity to implement.
The CAFTA-DR agreement is scheduled to be put before the US Congress for approval this year.
The text of the CAFTA-DR agreement is available at http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/DR-CAFTA/DR-CAFTA_Final_Texts/Section_Index.html
ICTSD reporting; "The ‘Green’ Promises of CAFTA," INTER PRESS SERVICE, 17 February 2005; "US, CAFTA countries sign environmental deals," REUTERS, 18 February 2005.