Market Access and Competitiveness Issues, Central American Context
Session on Trade, Environmental Management and Development in Central America
Session shared by Monica Araya, Diego Masera (UNEP) and Rodolfo Trejos (SIECA)
Organized by Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD) 
San José, Costa Rica
August, 2002

FTAA, Investment, and Sustainable Development
Discussion with FTAA Invesment Negotiators 
Panama City, January, 2002

This meeting was a follow up of the meeting that took place in Quebec. It took place in parallel to the FTAA investment negotiations and it involved the heads of the investment negotiations from Chile, Canada, and El Salvador together with the person in charge of trade and enviroment issues from the Ministry of Trade from El Salvador. The discussion were led by Carlos Murillo (CINPE) Monica Araya (GETS/Yale) Kevin Gallagher (CGD, Tufts University) Howard Mann (consultant) and David Schorr (WWF/US).

FTAA, Investment, and Sustainable Development
Breakfast Discussion with Invesment Experts from the Americas
Quebec City, April, 2001

This meeting was sponsored by the Sustainable Americas/ALCA Sostenible project and was organized by Monica Araya and Howard Mann. It took place in parallel to the III Summit of the Americas and it involved a selected group of experts from goverments (Chile and Canada), academia (CINPE, Costa Rica, Tufts University) and NGO community (WWF/US, ICTSD, IISD, and Chile Sustentable, CIPMA). 

Mexico's Environmental Challenges
Breakfast Discussion with Mexican Secretary of Environment Victor Lichtinger
Washington DC, May 18, 2001

Co-sponsored with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Americas Program/Mexico Project Washington, DC 

President Fox, whose coalition-led candidacy for president included Mexico's Green Party (PVEM), has vowed to pursue a more proactive environmental policy. Underscoring his commitment, President Fox appointed Victor Lichtinger as Secretary of the Environment-who is well known in environmental circles as an individual with vast experience. Secretary Lichtinger recently co-signed three environmental accords between Baja California and California. Environmentalists heralded the accords as an embrace of green policies by Mexico's new administration. While this may lead to an unprecedented level of governmental cooperation in the U.S.-Mexican border region- where both countries share natural resources, the challenges facing Secretary Lichtinger domestically are still quite daunting. Roughly one out of eight Mexicans have no easy access to drinking water, which is attributed to draught, deforestation, land use, as well as contamination; polluted water poses a threat to the country's public health; and Mexico must spend an estimated US$30 billion over the next decade to stop contamination and treat the water supply.

Secretary Lichtinger addressed a broad array of domestic and international environmental issues, such as the Fox administration's perspective on hazardous waste management practices, determination to tackle water pollution and supply problems, as well as new U.S.-Mexican cooperative efforts for environmental protection.

The FTAA and The Environment: What Can We Learn from the NAFTA Model?
Washington DC, April 2000

This event (organized together with NWF) offered a unique opportunity to assemble approximately 85 policy analysts, non-governmental organizations, government officials, and academics from the hemisphere to reflect on the NAFTA experience of integrating trade and environment concerns, and critically examine the relevance of NAFTA's environmental model for the FTAA. The speakers included:

• Ambassador Richard Fisher, Deputy United States Trade Representative (until January 2001)
• Javier Mancera, Ministry of Commerce and Industrial Development (SECOFI), Mexico
• Gustavo Alanis, Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental, Mexico
• Frederick Mayer, Duke University
• Jake Caldwell, National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
• Sidney Weintraub, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
• David Barkin, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico
• Luis Guadarrama, Environment Secretariat, Mexico
• Scott Vaughan, North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
• Blanca Torres, Colegio de México
• Kevin Gallagher, Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University
• Janine Ferretti, North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
• Barbara Bramble, National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
• Raul Rodriguez, North American Development Bank (NADBank)
• Ygnacio Garza, North American Border Environmental Commission
• Laura Carlsen, Centro Mexicano para el Desarrollo Sostenible
• David Schorr, World Wide Fund for Nature, US
• Robin Rosenberg, Dante Fascell North South Center, University of Miami
• Howard Mann, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
• Andrea Abel, National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
• Mario Matus, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chile
• Marianne Schaper, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile
• Carol Wise, John Hopkins University
• Nicolás Lucas, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA), Ecuador
• Eduardo Gitli, Centro Internacional de Política Económica (CINPE), Costa Rica
• Carlos Murillo, Centro Internacional de Política Económica (CINPE), Costa Rica
• John Audley, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Nicola Boregaard, Centro de Investigación y Planificación del Medio Ambiente (CIPMA),
• Daniel Esty, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
• Mónica Araya, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy

• The need to cast a Latin American trade and environment agenda reflecting the region's priorities;
• The need to strengthen environmental cooperation models and institutions as opposed to using unilateral and sanction-driven schemes; and 

The advantages of formalizing public participation and environmental reviews of trade agreements. 

An Environmental Agenda for the FTAA
Miami, December 1998

In December 1998, the YCELP and the Global Environment and Trade Study (GETS) organized this meeting in Miami which offered an important opportunity to gather a very diverse group of experts in trade and environment issues. Not only did the participants come from different academic backgrounds but also they had very different working experience in academia, government, consulting, and non-profit sectors. This meeting served as an excellent starting point for the YCELP to discuss trade and environment issues in the Latin American context. These are the participants:

• Héctor Torres, Argentine Mission to the WTO
• Bruno Podestá, Training Center for Regional Integration (CEFIR), Uruguay
• Diana Tussie, FLACSO, Argentina
• Daniel Ryan, Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN), Argentina
• Marie-Claire Segger, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada
• Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Switzerland
• José Manuel Salazar X, Trade Unit, Organization of American States, Washington, DC
• Carlos Murillo, Centro Internacional de Política Económica (CINPE), Costa Rica
• Marianne Schaper, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile
• Hernán Blanco, Centro de Investigación y Planificación del Medio Ambiente (CIPMA), Chile
• Gustavo Alanis, Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (CEMDA)
• Nicolás Lucas, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA), Ecuador
• María Amparo Albán, Centro Ecuatoriano de Derecho Ambiental (CEDA)
• Víctor Lichtinger, Analítica, Mexico (current Mexican Secretary of Environment).
• James Cameron, Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD)/ GETS,
• Steve Charnovitz, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering/GETS
• Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)/GETS
• Susan Weuste, GETS
• Michael Burstein, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
• Lila Gil, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies 
• Andre Duá, McKinsey & Co, New York
• Daniel Esty, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy/GETS
• Mónica Araya, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy/GETS

• Lack of "trade and environment" knowledge and capacity, especially within Latin American governments;
• High level of mistrust of US environmental motives and bargaining during the negotiations; 
• The difficulties of accommodating the complexity of environmental issues in a common Latin American agenda; and
• The fact that environmental issues are being pushed faster than the South is willing to accommodate.

Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
Sage Hall
205 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT
Telephone: 203.432.3123
Fax: 203.432.6597
Email: barbara.ruth@yale.edu