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20 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 129 (2007-2008)
NAAEC Citizen Submission against Mexico: An Analysis of the Effectiveness of a Participatory Approach to Environmental Law Enforcement

handle is hein.journals/gintenlr20 and id is 131 raw text is: NAAEC Citizen Submissions Against Mexico: An Analysis of the Effectiveness of a Participatory Approach to Environmental Law Enforcement JONATHAN G. DORN* With the recent free trade debate surrounding the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the time seems ripe to assess the effectiveness of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) at promoting environmental law enforcement in Mexico and improving Mexico's environ- ment.1 The NAAEC is a side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) forged at the behest of environmentalists to allay concerns that free trade would stimulate a race to the bottom in environmental regulations and enforcement. These concerns were particularly salient in the NAFTA debate and have also colored the CAFTA debate because Mexican environmental law, while sound, has a history of poor enforcement.2 The participatory approach embodied in the citizen submission procedure of Articles 14 and 15 of NAAEC assuaged the concerns of environmentalists and enabled passage of NAFTA. These provisions create a direct role for individuals in domestic law enforcement and are unique in international law, challenging the state-centric orientation and sovereignty focus of most multinational environmental agreements. In this article, I (1) provide a summary and analysis of the citizen submissions against Mexico; (2) discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the citizen submission procedure; and (3) conclude that while NAAEC has not contributed significantly to domestic law enforcement in Mexico, NAAEC has improved Mexico's environment by stimulating corrective actions by non-compliant industries and federal agencies before domestic law enforcement becomes involved. The strength of the NAAEC procedure is its ability to shine a light on a non-compliant party and shame the party into complying with domestic environmental laws. Such shaming is effective at eliciting corrective action by the non-compliant * Jonathan Dorn has a B.S. in applied biology, summa cum laude, from Georgia Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in environmental science from University of Arizona, and an M.P.P. in environmental policy from University of Maryland. He wishes to thank Professor Armin Rosencranz for his constructive comments and insightful review of this manuscript. © 2007, Jonathan G. Dom. 1. An overview of NAAEC with an emphasis on the citizen submission procedure is provided in an addendum to this paper. 2. See generally U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, U.S.-MEXICO TRADE: INFORMATION ON ENVIRONmENTAL REGULATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT, GAO/NSIAD-91-227 (May 1991). 3. Kal Raustiala, Citizen Submission and Treaty Review in the NAAEC, in GREENING NAFrA: THE NORTH AMERIcAN COMUSSION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COOPERATION 256 (David L. Markell & John H. Knox eds., 2003).

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