A greener, or browner, Mexico?
NAFTA purports to be the world’s first environmentally friendly trade treaty, but its critics claim it has made Mexico dirtier. There is evidence on both sides
GIVEN the industrial invasion that the North American Free-Trade Agreement has brought to the cities that line Mexico's border with the United States, one might expect the skies of Ciudad Juarez to be brown with pollution, and its watercourses solid with toxic sludge. But no. The centre of Ciudad Juarez looks like a poorer version of El Paso, Texas, its cross-border neighbour: flat, dull and full of shopping malls. Since NAFTA took effect on January 1st 1994, Mexico has passed environmental laws similar to those of the United States and Canada, its NAFTA partners; has set up a fully-fledged environment ministry; and has started to benefit from several two- and three-country schemes designed to fulfil “side accords” on the environment—the first such provisions in a trade agreement.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “A greener, or browner, Mexico?”
From the August 7th 1999 edition
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