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How NGOs influenced NAFTA

Philip Ginsberg

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the first free trade agreement between developed countries and a developing country. It is of particular importance in the history of nongovernmental organisations’ (NGOs) involvement with trade policy as different groups from entirely different countries found themselves working to change the same free trade agreement (FTA). Given the considerable differences between the United States, the world’s richest democracy, and Mexico, a developing country (with a one-party political system at the time), it is not surprising that their further economic integration gave rise to concern from NGOs on both sides of the border. Eventually, they had to learn to adapt and work together, creating some of the first effectively transnational groups of NGOs in the process and laying bare some of the tensions between different NGOs’ philosophies when it came to working with the state. As Marcus Noland says “In the aftermath of NAFTA, policymakers can no longer avoid the heated controversies over workers’ protection, human rights, and the environment.” (Noland 1999)

This paper aims to analyse the extent of the NGOs influence on NAFTA and give an overview of the manner in which these organisations came to affect the agreement.

NGOs' first steps to a coherent resistance

After it had been announced in 1990 that talks for an FTA between Canada, the US and Mexico were underway, environmental NGOs (ENGOs) from all three countries immediately called for environmental issues to be included in the negotiations. Mexican ENGOs were particularly concerned about the consequences of rapid economic growth in their country as well as about increased free trade between countries of such divergent levels of environmental protection. NGOs proposals could not be ignored easily as they were backed by non-environmental NGOs, most importantly by the US trade unions (Hogenboom 2003). In Mexico, trade unions had no influence because of the ruling party’s control over the major trade union federation (the Consejo de Trabadores Mexicanos) (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002). On the US side, labour unions and protectionist groups feared competition from Mexican-based industries unhampered by higher environmental standards and able to offer far cheaper labour (Hogenboom 2003).

All types of NGOs benefited from the fact that apart from the general public “a considerable number” of members of the US Congress were prepared to listen to their concerns - indeed, this new broad public and political support astounded the governments of the member countries and ensured that Mexico’s poor environmental policy became a major issue. Although policies in Mexico had been improving gradually, the government neglected their implementation and enforcement, and there was even a “structural lack” of environmental concern from government agencies. By questioning the relationship between trade and environmental policy, NGOs also questioned the relationship between the state and civil society and their respective roles in protecting the environment (Hogenboom 2003).

The impact of NGOs’ transnational alliances

Moreover, an unprecedented number of NGOs established transnational ties and communicated and advised each other across the borders in a way they had never done before, which lead to the Mexican government being put under a new pattern of political pressure even before negotiations for NAFTA had been concluded. But how exactly did their cooperation evolve in the run-up to the agreement, and what was its impact beyond raising awareness of NAFTA’s possibly harmful effects to a large audience and helping to change the role of civil society, especially in the face of economic agreements?

In October 1990, nearly 30 Canadian NGOs attended a large meeting in Mexico City. They had already gathered some experience by opposing the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) which had become effective in 1988. In January 1991, representatives of NGOs from all three countries concerned as well as academics and members of the US Congress met in Washington, D.C. This meeting had a considerable effect on public awareness of the NGOs concerns about NAFTA. More specifically, as a result of the NGOs work, the US Congress made clear that environmental issued needed to be included in the negotiations. This lead President George Bush to announce in May 1991 that NAFTA would be negotiated using American environmental laws and regulations as its standards (Hogenboom 2003).

NGOs’ impact on the Bush administration’s plans.

After the importance of environmental issues had successfully been established by NGOs the debate about specific arrangements began. The Bush Administration’s general strategy was to establish a ‘parallel track’ of bilateral environmental cooperation and draw up supplemental agreements to NAFTA rather than integrating protective measures directly into the agreement. This strategy increased fears of pollution along the Mexican-US border - already a ‘hot topic’ - and the possibility of American industry relocating to Mexico. In response, the US and Mexican governments published a joint “Border Plan” which was immediately criticised as a “plan to plan” by NGOs because it was so vague on the implementation of policies. When hundreds of people came to public hearings of the plan and NGOs submitted written protest letters the “Border Plan” was revised to a considerable extent (Hogenboom 2003). Once again, NGOs had managed to be taken seriously and influence government policy because of their capacity to raise awareness and their coherent protest.

However, after President Bush’s declaration of May 1991, underlying tensions between the ways different types of NGOs viewed NAFTA lead to a split within the protest movement. Moderate NGOs were more prepared to work with the state to make environmental safeguards an integral part of NAFTA while more critical NGOs wanted to take NAFTA into a new direction and transform it from a trade agreement into a development agreement (Hogenboom 2003). Therefore, they were much less inclined to compromise and work together with the government.

In August 1992 negotiators presented the so-called “greenest trade agreement” which was nevertheless declared too weak in its language as well as in financial and enforcement terms by both moderate and critical NGOs. Equally, proposals to create a “Regional Environmental Commission” were dismissed by ENGOs. These protests were further reinforced by American trade unions’ complaints about NAFTA’s treatment of labour rights and an immanent Presidential Election. These factors lead the US Congress to delay voting (Hogenboom 2003). Luckily for the NGOs, opposition candidates had a greater forum for expressing their views on the treaty because the debate about NAFTA coincided with the presidential campaign as well as the primary election campaigns, (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002).

How NGOs cooperated with the Clinton administration

After President Clinton’s election in late 1992, the US Government promised the addition of supplemental agreements on environmental and labour issues to NAFTA and sought closer relations with moderate US ENGOs (Hogenboom 2003) which exacerbated the division between moderate and critical NGOs: while moderate NGOs (such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) and the National Audubon Society) proved willing to compromise on their position by lowering their demands in exchange for an opportunity to actively influence the agreement by working with the government, more critical NGOs (such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club) drew up a transnational alternative agreement that focussed on sustainable development and trade (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002).

Essentially, the US government advocated a stronger and supranational “Commission for Environmental Co-operation” (CEC) and trade sanctions as punishment for a member country that failed to observe environmental requirements. While many Mexican and also some Canadian organisations were concerned that the US would use these measures for protectionist aims, even some more moderate NGOs such as the WWF and the NWF did not support sanctions. The supplemental environmental agreement therefore only provided limited supranational responsibilities for the CEC and very limited opportunities for sanctions to be imposed - its language was careful and often toothless. Still, moderate NGOs had directly influenced the process of negotiation and design of side-agreements together with a US government that was willing to cooperate. They had therefore won a battle which had taken place against a background of resistance from the private sector organisations’ transnational lobbies, who wanted no CEC and no trade sanctions at all (Hogenboom 2003).

The interests of pro-free trade NGOs

In Canada, most pressure came from the “Canadian Business Council on National Issues”, in the US, from the “American Business Roundtable” and in Mexico from “Coordinadora de Organismos Empresariales de Comercio Exterior”. However, the influence of these business NGOs must not be overemphasised (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002). The Canadian and US governments were already well accustomed to channelling business’ demands for consultation through elaborate mechanisms that reduced their direct impact and influence on policy, such as the “International Trade Advisory Committee” in Canada, and the “Sectoral Advisory Committee” as well as the “Advisory Council on Trade Negotiations” in the US (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002). In Mexico pro-free trade NGOs were unable to exert influence on the government as there was a “historic lack of relationship” between the public and the private sectors in addition to the considerable dominance of the ruling party (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002) in a state that did not have elections generally accepted as free until 2000.

Conclusion: A success for moderate NGOs despite their internal tensions

Moderate US ENGOs broke the civil and political opposition to NAFTA by working together with all three governments as well as Mexican and American private sector organisations. Hence, the US Congress’ ratification in November 2003 of the NAFTA package they helped to design “can be considered a success for the moderate NGOs” (Hogenboom 2003). Andreas Falke sums up the effect of this success: “the politics of trade policy making had changed for good” (Falke 2001).

After NGOs had initiated the debate and ensured that it was taken up by politicians where possible they had remained a valuable source of constructive criticism. Despite their institutional differences in size, membership, financial situation and relative freedom to act in the political sphere considering the difference between Mexico and its northern neighbours, NGOs were successful in constructing a valid transnational opposition (Hogenboom 2003). The adaptability of NGOs meant that they could create “advocacy networks” (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002) that provided them with new channels of access to government negotiators and make resources available across borders. However, the strength and effectiveness of transnational NGOs depends on local groups and campaigns (Van der Heijden 2002), another indicator of the ‘grass roots’ change in civil society’s attitude achieved during the campaign for changes to NAFTA.

It is significant that the tension between NGOs from different nations was contained within the movement and that the only split among NGOs occurred between moderate NGOs (in other words, those ideologically predisposed to cooperate with existing power structures) and critical NGOs (those seeking to overcome them). Those moderate NGOs benefited from ‘losing’ their more extreme partners - an effect desired by the Clinton administration, too. Indeed, moderate groups were able to convince more critical groups to back their ideas because more extreme groups knew they would benefit from the legitimacy offered by working with their politically more acceptable partners (Hogenboom 2003).

NGOs had demonstrated that they could no longer be ignored by governments seeking to further economic integration (Hogenboom 2003). One may even go so far as to say that, in the globalising political landscape, they have taken over some of the roles traditionally belonging to political parties (Van der Heijden 2002). Trade policy is now viewed as a tool for improving developmental factors such as environment and labour in member countries (Falke 2001) and it has been “politicised to an unprecedented degree (Falke 2001).

At the same time, while an important example of transnational activism and cross-border politics, the achievements of the debate about NAFTA should also not be overstated: the supplemental agreement’s provisions have only had a limited effect on Mexico’s environmental policy performance and the “narrow approach” of the agreements on environmental protections, as well as the absence of substantial funding mechanisms (Hogenboom 2003), let NAFTA fall short of many an NGO’s imagined ideal. It is safe to assume therefore that although NGOs were highly effective towards the beginning of negotiations, let alone by putting the issue in the public eye, their effectiveness diminished toward the end of negotiations when the organs of the state were clearly able to exert control on those groups attempting to influence them (Macdonald/Schwartz 2002).

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