Introduction

In January 1994, two side and parallel environmental agreements between Canada, the United States, and Mexico came into effect along with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation and the U.S.-Mexico Border Environment Cooperation Agreement. To administer them, the governments established three regional institutions: the (North American) Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the North American Development Bank, and the (U.S.-Mexico) Border Environment Cooperation Commission. The agreements’ implementation and the creation of these institutions, aimed at protecting and enhancing the North American environment, made the three countries’ domestic environmental policies trilaterally interdependent.¹

To date, most accounts in the current literature on North American integration consider the agreements’ implementation and the creation of these institutions as either a side-effect of the pursuit of national governments’ economic interests or the result of successful pressure by non-governmental organizations to include their demands in NAFTA’s negotiations. On the one hand, most North America-focused scholars argue that national governments -most prominently, the U.S.- dominate this integration process (^{Wise, 1998}; ^{Appendini and Bislev, 1999}; ^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000}; ^{Weintraub, 2004}; ^{Studer Nóguez and Wise, 2007}; ^{Clarkson, 2008}; ^{MacDonald, 2008}; ^{Ayres and Macdonald, 2012}; ^{Duina, 2016}). In their view, transnational actors and/or regional institutions either exercise very limited influence on this process or none at all (^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000}; ^{Clarkson, 2008}; ^{Hale and Blank, 2010}; Ayres and MacDonald, 2012; ^{McKinney, 2015}). According to these scholars, the occurrence and progression -or lack thereof- of North American integration, including the implementation of NAFTA’s environmental agreements, is satisfactorily explained by theoretical accounts based on the analysis of national governments’ interests, positions, and actions. I argue that these explanations closely resemble liberal intergovernmentalist accounts of the occurrence and progression of European regional integration.

On the other hand, a smaller number of scholars highlight the influence of transnational actors in determining the extent of this process, even if not its current pace or direction. According to these scholars, society-oriented, labor, and environmental civil society organizations in the three countries, and especially in the U.S., pressed the national governments into negotiating and implementing environmental and labor agreements alongside NAFTA as a condition to its approval in their corresponding domestic legislatures (^{Raustiala, 1996}, ²⁰⁰³, ²⁰⁰⁴; ^{Bugeda, 1998}; ^{Kibel, 2001}; ^{Markell, 2004}, ²⁰⁰⁵; ^{Knox and Markell, eds., 2003}). In these accounts, transnational actors significantly influenced the negotiation and implementation of NAFTA by broadening the scope of the overall bargain to incorporate and establish environmental and labor side and parallel accords to the main agreement, which the Canadian, U.S., and Mexican governments did not originally pursue.² This explanation, then, closely resembles recent “transnational”-centered theoretical approaches that emphasize the role of transnational actors (that is, neither governments nor regional institutions) to explain the occurrence and development of European integration (^{Hurrelmann, 2009}; ²⁰¹¹).

I review both accounts and argue that they both inadequately assess the interests of governmental and transnational actors, and their roles and relative influence in determining the outcome of the negotiations of NAFTA’s side and parallel agreements on the environment. I argue that both “purely” liberal intergovernmentalist and transactionalist- like accounts of this process overlook significant features of the NAFTA deal and its institutional outcome that reveal national governments’ non-economic interests and the very limited capacity of transnational actors to act as a cohesive group with coherent demands. I propose, then, to review and reassess more adequately, even if briefly, the origins and occurrence of North American integration better than currently dominant accounts do. In doing so, I also aim at demonstrating the relevance of European integration theories to the North American case, through the comparative use of the liberal intergovernmentalist and transnationalist approaches. I argue that this kind of revised account would better explain the original and current extent, pace, and direction of North American integration, including its expansion toward “non-economic” policy areas.

To do so, I first briefly describe and discuss the emergence of environmental cross-border rules and regional institutions in North America. Then, I summarize the liberal intergovernmentalist and transnationalist-like accounts often used to explain the emergence and development of North American integration. I argue that although the theorization of this process has been very limited, the accounts that are currently provided to explain it closely resemble those used to explain the emergence and development of European integration. I discuss and analyze the relevant policy and institutional developments in the region and the roles of governmental and transnational actors. Finally, I review the current explanations for the emergence of this process and show their ability to more adequately explain the extent, pace, and direction of this process. I argue that doing so will contribute to demonstrate the relevance of (European) integration theories to the study of the North American case.

The Emergence of Environmental Cross-Border Rules And Regional Institutions in North America

Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. cooperation on environmental issues was very limited before the implementation of NAFTA and NAAEC in the 1990s. Although trilateral consultation among these countries on related matters dates as far back as the late nineteenth century, no trilateral cross-border rules existed prior to these agreements.³ Prior to NAFTA, these issues had not been raised in the negotiation or functioning of bilateral, trilateral, or multilateral agreements between the North American countries, including the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA). When the Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. governments started to negotiate NAFTA at the beginning of the 1990s, they did not expect existing environmental issues to affect its negotiations (^{Knox and Markell, eds., 2003}).

By the early 1990s, however, intra-regional trade and foreign direct investment among the three countries had already been growing significantly. When the NAFTA negotiations started, civil society groups in the three countries raised concerns about the social and environmental impact that increased cross-border economic exchanges would have in their communities. Most of these groups argued that such exchanges would impact negatively on the three countries’ environment by prompting a “race to the bottom” for trade and investment.⁴ They said that firms and investors would seek to take advantage of the uneven economic development and enforcement of environmental laws in North America, which were claimed to be especially low and weak in Mexico (^{Weintraub, 1990}; ^{Shrybman, 1993}; ^{Husted and Logsdon, 1997}). In their view, NAFTA should incorporate explicit means of enforcement (such as trade sanctions) to ensure that its implementation would not lead to environmental degradation in their countries or the rest of North America. In response, government officials in the three countries committed to not downgrade or weaken domestic environmental laws and standards owing to the implementation of NAFTA. They rejected, however, creating enforcement mechanisms (including trade penalties) in cases of failure to enforce environmental laws, arguing that doing so would generate trade distortions that would hinder the gains expected from implementing the agreement. At the same time, they acknowledged that rejecting such proposals outright could lead to continued (and, possibly, growing) opposition from civil society groups. To avoid obstacles in passing NAFTA in their legislatures, the three governments then resolved to negotiate and implement the NAAEC as a side agreement to NAFTA.⁵ Meanwhile, to address the specific needs of the area along their shared border, the U.S. and Mexico resolved to also negotiate and implement the beca as a parallel agreement to NAFTA, as Canada expressed no interest in taking part in it.

At first glance, these agreements resemble other international, intergovernmental instruments aimed at protecting the environment. The NAAEC’s main objectives are

To accomplish these three objectives, the NAAEC recognizes each country’s right to determine its own level of environmental protection, set its own environmental policies and priorities, and adopt or modify its laws and regulations accordingly. At the same time, however, the NAAEC creates obligations for the national governments to ensure that their domestic laws and regulations provide for high levels of environmental protection; enforce such safeguards; and aim at continually improving them. This combination of national governments’ rights and obligations constitutes NAAEC’s raison d’être: ensuring the effective enforcement of domestic environmental laws in North America through the implementation of a regional agreement that sets cross-border rules.

To ensure fulfillment of these obligations, the NAAEC mandated the establishment of the (North American) Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).⁶ This institution oversees the agreement’s implementation, facilitates collaboration among the national governments, and fosters public participation for the conservation, protection, and enhancement of the North American environment. This last provision is especially important. First, it enables the North American public, i.e. individuals and NGOS in any of the three countries, to protect and enhance the region’s environment even beyond the borders of their own countries. And second, it gives the CEC jurisdiction to address “almost any environmental issue that might arise in the continent” and that the public might bring to its attention through the Submission on Enforcement Matters (SEM) process (^{Knox and Markell, 2003: 11}). The Border Environmental Cooperation Agreement (BECA), meanwhile, aims at strengthening cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico on environmental issues and preventing damage to the environment in the area along their common border, resulting from the operation of NAFTA. To fulfill these aims, the BECA established two bi-national institutions: the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) and the North American Development Bank (NADB). They are both charged with evaluating and providing administrative and financial support and resources for developing and improving environmental infrastructure in the area.⁷ To fulfill their mandates, they have quasi-independent budgets whose allocation is not subject to changes by national or sub-national administrations.⁸ Along with the trilateral CEC, the BECC and NADB constitute North America’s regional environmental institutions.

Theorising North American Integration

An Alternative Explanation of North American Integration

In opposition to current accounts, I submit that these agreements resulted from the pursuit of the corresponding economic and non-economic interests of the Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. governments, which, at the outset of this process, were only marginally influenced by the concerns of civil society organizations on the environmental impact of NAFTA. In this alternative explanation, the governments had two sets of interests in pursuing and achieving the environmental agreements:

In the face of civil society organizations’ opposition to NAFTA, the Canadian, U.S., and Mexican national governments resolved to negotiate and implement environmental agreements, which secured the passing of the trade and investment agreement, while addressing several environmental externalities resulting from the current and expected economic exchanges among them. Given that such externalities could not be solved effectively through domestic decisionand policy-making, these countries required entering into intergovernmental agreements. In these, the three governments consistently pursued and mostly achieved their common economic interests. Their distinct socio-environmental interests, however, resulted in the signing and implementation of two separate agreements that established three institutions with dissimilar jurisdictions, responsibilities, and powers to accomplish them. The current institutional framework for protecting and enhancing the North American environment is a direct result of these interests.

At its outset, North American integration was a manifestly intergovernmental, but not exclusively economic, process. Over the past 23 years, however, its nature has changed as the cross-border rules and regional institutions have become increasingly complex and influential, a circumstance that the national governments did not originally intend or anticipate. The creation of cross-border rules enabled transnational actors to demand national and sub-national governments address environmental issues and externalities resulting from increased cross-border economic exchanges among their countries by creating regional institutions. These institutions have proactively and purposely sought ways and means to foster the participation of transnational actors in protecting the region’s environment. This demand-and-response dynamic has resulted in changes to the domestic policies, practices, and decisions of national and sub-national governments that would not have otherwise occurred. In fact, at times, these changes have been manifestly opposed by governmental actors.

To reassess and reinterpret the emergence and development of cross-border rules for the protection of the North American environment and the roles of governmental, regional, and transnational actors in prompting -or hindering- these institutional developments in a better manner than current accounts do, I assume that all these actors make rational choices. That is, their positions and decisions on a given policy issue and their behavior within a given institutional context are determined through the evaluation of a range of possible outcomes and alternatives available to pursue them. Through this evaluation, the actors determine and rank their preferred outcomes and, in turn, choose the best course of action to achieve them. Just like governmental actors, transnational actors (that is, individuals and civil society organizations) and regional institutions have goals and preferred outcomes and means to achieve them. Moreover, actors taking part in an integration process also aim at bolstering their position vis-à-vis other actors. For instance, as the institutions respond to demands from transnational actors, that is, using, applying, interpreting, and even modifying the existing rules, their actions result in institutional changes that progressively expand and advance their scope and significance.

Reinterpreting the National Interests and Positions in NAFTA’s Environmental Agreements

Current interpretations of the North American integration emphasize to different extents the roles of various actors in the process. Depending on the account under review, it is argued that either national governments or transnational actors played a decisive role in shaping its institutional outcomes. Both intergovernmentalist and transnational accounts acknowledge that from the moment it was proposed, NAFTA faced strong opposition from environmental groups -especially, but not exclusively, in the U.S. The disagreement between these accounts lies in the extent to which such opposition shaped the outcome of the NAFTA bargain. A reinterpretation and reassessment of the proposal, negotiation, and securing of the agreement confirm its decidedly intergovernmental, but not solely economic, nature as it is commonly argued.

First, civil society organizations did not constitute a cohesive group with well defined demands or comparable access or influence in their own domestic political systems. For instance, even before the terms of the agreement were determined, many organizations in the U.S. had already expressed their resolute opposition to NAFTA. They claimed that free and increased trade between the U.S. and its neighbors -particularly Mexico- would impact negatively on the environment in their communities. In the U.S., these groups opposed the agreement but did not engage with policymakers to advance and look for representation of their positions on the national agenda. Some other groups, meanwhile, sought and secured support from legislators in Congress to prevent the agreement’s approval and implementation. In general, U.S. legislators conveyed and expressed this dissatisfaction at the lack of environmental safeguards in NAFTA. Many of them, however, partially favored the agreement’s negotiation and implementation. Therefore, they only conditioned their support to the inclusion of provisions and mechanisms that protected their communities -especially those located along the U.S.-Mexico border- from (further) environmental degradation. To ensure the inclusion of such safeguards, the U.S. Congress passed the NAFTA Implementation Act of 1993, which outlined the conditions sent to the executive for approving the agreement’s negotiation and entry into force (^{U.S. GPO, 1993}). Nonetheless, the Clinton administration estimated that only some groups opposing NAFTA had enough political clout to disrupt the congressional vote and prevent the agreement from being passed. Therefore, the executive focused only on meeting the demands of those key groups and concluded that by making some changes, NAFTA would gather enough support to pass Congress. To fulfill these demands, the executive pursued and secured the negotiation and implementation of both NAAEC and BECA. The former would contribute to preventing trade-induced damage to the North American environment and the weakening of U.S. environmental laws and standards. The latter would address the specific demands of communities along the U.S.-Mexico border for restoring and improving the environmental conditions in their areas (^{McFadyen, 1998}).

Besides securing the approval of NAFTA, however, the U.S. government had a secondary socio-environmental interest in pursuing NAAEC and BECA to address problems affecting U.S. communities, most urgently, those located in the area along the border with Mexico.¹³ Various U.S. national and sub-national governments and their administrations had previously attempted to address environmental issues affecting this area. However, the continuous growth in population, trade, and industry there; the vast economic differential between the two countries; and the lack of investment in environmental infrastructure on both sides of the border had prevented them from achieving long-term, effective solutions. The government (particularly, the Clinton administration), then, had a strong interest in pursuing and achieving NAAEC and BECA to protect its population from (further) environmental degradation resulting from increased economic exchanges (^{Carmona Lara, 1993: 299-302}).¹⁴

The U.S. government was not the only one with a two-fold set of national interests in pursuing the North American environmental agreements. It is widely assumed that Mexico’s position as the economically weakest partner significantly (or entirely) determined its interest in pursuing NAFTA’s environmental agreements. According to some scholars, Mexico regarded the negotiation and implementation of NAAEC and BECA as only prerequisites to attaining the main trade and investment agreement and, in turn, gaining and securing improved access to the U.S. market (^{Vega Cánovas, 2003}; ^{Clarkson, 2008: 120}). According to their accounts, the administration of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was very concerned about potential holdups to the negotiation and ratification of the agreement. To ensure the attainment of NAFTA, Mexico was willing to agree to any demands from their trading partners, namely, the U.S. Hence, it pursued the environmental agreements. These accounts are simplistic and inadequate. Instead, I argue that Mexico had a set of primary economic and secondary environmental interests, comparable to that of the U.S.

I claim that Mexico’s interests went well beyond securing the agreement. First, the country had an economic interest in carefully shaping the environmental agreements and their institutions to prevent their use as tools for “disguised protectionism” by the U.S. and Canada (^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000: 185}). The Mexican government opposed the creation of a strong regional institution to enforce region-wide environmental regulations, as it considered that such an institution could potentially reduce the free flows of trade and foreign direct investment to the country. Furthermore, the U.S. and Canada could use such an institution as an instrument to protect their markets from Mexican competition by setting non-tariff barriers (^{Carmona Lara, 1993}). Mexico then rejected the Clinton administration proposal to establish a regional institution with power to enforce the countries’ own domestic environmental laws, as it deemed it inadmissible (^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000: 184}). It was willing, however, to help the U.S. improve the prospects of passing the NAFTA Implementation Act in the U.S. Congress, while ensuring that neither the U.S. nor Canada would gain a competitive advantage over Mexico. To meet both objectives, it proposed establishing regional environmental agreements and institutions with weaker mandates and enforcement powers than those originally proposed by the U.S., but strong enough to help the U.S. executive to meet the requirements of the NAFTA Implementation Act.

The Mexican government had a secondary interest in securing funding for building and improving its environmental infrastructure and enhancing the wellbeing of its population, especially in communities along its 3 145 km-long border with the U.S. By the beginning of the 1990s, industrial and population growth, the sustained rise in trade and manufacturing, deficient sanitation infrastructure, and a lack of investment in public services had severely degraded the environment in the U.S.-Mexico border area. On the Mexican side, the limited or complete absence of municipal or state funding to address these problems, along with the reluctance of the federal government to allocate funds to the area, further complicated this situation.¹⁵ When NAFTA negotiations began and the need for committing to an environmental agreement became increasingly evident, Mexico seized the opportunity to secure financial support to address its infrastructure deficiencies (^{BECC, 2009}). When the U.S. proposed establishing a regional institution charged with overseeing and enforcing environmental laws across North America, the Mexican government proposed setting up a North American development fund that would help address infrastructure deficiencies (including, but not limited to, environmental ones) in Mexico, through U.S. and Canada-funded grants. The U.S. and Canada recognized the need to help Mexico in developing its infrastructure. While the U.S. found the proposal politically contentious, Canada dismissed it entirely and refused to participate (^{Zamora, 2008: 121}). In response, Mexico scaled down its proposal. The fund would only provide financial support for improving environmental infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. accepted this revised proposal, but Canada still expressed no interest in participating. Mexico and the U.S. agreed then to pursue and implement the Border Environmental Cooperation Agreement (BECA) as a bilateral agreement to be signed and implemented parallel to NAFTA. In other words, the agreement would be negotiated alongside NAFTA, but signed and entered separately by the two countries only.

It can be argued that Canada’s interest in negotiating NAAEC but staying out of BECA resulted from its own pursuit of economic and socio-environmental interests, comparable to those of the U.S. and Mexico. Canada’s federal government had two primary economic interests in pursuing and achieving these agreements. First and foremost, attaining NAFTA was a way of securing the trade advantages it had made through CUSFTA. It is worth recalling that Canada originally joined the then-bilateral negotiation of the U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement to protect its own FTA with the U.S. Faced with the prospect of a bilateral trade agreement between these two countries, Canada sought and secured access to the deal. Comparatively, then, for Canada, negotiating and entering into environmental agreements was only “a minor” -if controversial- condition for realizing NAFTA (^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000: 206}). Second, Canada aimed at preventing U.S. protectionism through trade sanctions for nontrade issues, including environmental ones (^{Cameron and Tomlin, 2000: 188-200}; ^{Clarkson, 2009: 15}). In this regard, the Canadian government supported the creation of a regional environmental institution, but found the idea of establishing an independent commission with sanctioning powers “particularly difficult to accept” (^{Knox and Markell, 2003: 8}). Canada deemed such an institution a possible risk to the trade gains already made under CUSFTA and those expected from NAFTA, as the U.S. could use it to hinder trade.¹⁶ Up until the end of the negotiations, then, Canada opposed creating a regional institution with enforcement powers.

Notwithstanding this strong opposition to granting enforcement powers to the proposed (North American) Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), Canada also had a secondary socio-environmental interest in negotiating and entering the NAAEC. Namely, it aimed at preventing degradation of its environment resulting from downward competition for jobs and investments both with the U.S. and Mexico and among its own provinces. Canada also aimed at preventing “the anticipated widespread negative outcomes (i.e., race to the bottom, pollution havens) [that might] emerge as an outcome of the economic integration of North America” (^{Environment Canada, 2007: 23}). At the domestic level, the Canadian federal government sought to prevent its provincial and local governments from competing with those of the U.S. and Mexico by lowering environmental laws, standards, or slackening their enforcement. For Canada, the simultaneous negotiation of NAFTA and NAAEC was therefore advantageous as it brought together its interests in protecting its domestic environment while securing the gains achieved through CUSFTA (^{Environment Canada, 2007: 19}). On this same basis, Canada also declined to participate in the creation of an environmental fund for Mexico, or the U.S.-Mexico border area. Although the Clinton administration proposed that Canada contribute to the fund, the country saw little connection between the clean-up and improvement of the environment in the U.S. Mexico border area and the facilitation of trade or expansion of economic opportunities throughout North America. Arguing that the proposed fund reflected bi-national concerns over the degradation of the environment along the U.S.-Mexico border, Canada expressed no interest in participating in it (^{Gantz, 1996: 1028}). The agreement was hence negotiated between the U.S. and Mexico only, and the resulting institutions, the NADB and BECC, were created parallel to NAFTA.

This description of the negotiations shows that all three countries pursued two sets of interests: a primarily economic interest in attaining NAFTA to reap the benefits of freer and increased trade and investment in North America and secondary, differentiated socio-environmental interests. The combination of these interests resulted in diverging positions and strategies that shaped the NAAEC and BECC accords and their institutional outcomes.¹⁷ For instance, the U.S. pursued and entered trilateral and bilateral environmental side and parallel agreements to NAFTA to address the environmental problems of communities located along its border area with Mexico. Similarly, Mexico entered the agreements to secure trade advantages and funding for creating or improving environmental infrastructure in its border area with the U.S. Moreover, Mexico had an interest in shaping NAAEC to ensure that the U.S. would not use this agreement’s rules for protectionist purposes. Finally, the connection -and lack thereof- between the economic and environmental interests and goals of the North American governments in the NAAEC negotiations is even more evident in Canada’s case. For Canada, its participation in NAAEC contributed to consolidating the federal government’s economic and environmental agenda. It protected the gains made in CUSFTA while ensuring that the provincial governments would not engage in downward competition for jobs and investments with the U.S. and Mexico. Given that Canada also had a secondary interest in protecting its territory and population from possible environmental degradation, it had incentives to participate in the trilateral North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). Nonetheless, given that it shared no border with Mexico and the dissimilarity in the socio-economic conditions of the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico border areas, the Canadian government had no incentive to participate in the bilateral BECA, which had been originally proposed as a trilateral accord for promoting development and improvement of (environmental) infrastructure throughout Mexico.

On this basis, I argue that in the negotiations of the North American environmental agreements, the national governments achieved their separate economic and environmental interests. During the negotiations phase, the nation-states -specifically their heads of government- were primarily in control of the integration process. Given that the outcome of these negotiations was the signing of intergovernmental agreements, some scholars argue that the nature of the process itself is intergovernmental. Their accounts partially support, then, the li arguments, which claim that nation-states can efficiently pursue and secure their interests in negotiations. According to the li approach, states define their national interests through domestic contention between interest groups within the nation-state over a given set of preferences. Once determined, such preferences become national interests and, in turn, intergovernmental bargaining objectives. However, a “purely” liberal intergovernmentalist account, based only on the examination of states’ economic national interests, would fail to adequately account for the proposal, negotiation, and outcomes of the trilateral NAAEC and the bilateral BECA.

The three governments regarded NAAEC as a requirement for securing NAFTA to purposely expand their economic exchanges and address the environmental externalities of such increased interactions. This was not the case of BECA. Had transnational actors been the key force shaping the development and outcome of the negotiations, as transnationalist-like theorists of North American integration claim, the NAAEC would have been significantly stronger, characterized by strict and enforceable regional rules on environmental protection and backed by trade sanctions in cases of noncompliance. Similarly, had transnational actors had as much influence over the negotiations and their outcome as is commonly argued, it is likely that a trilateral fund to improve and enhance the region’s environment, especially Mexico’s, would have been created. The li approach only partly explains, then, the interests of the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments in negotiating and entering into these agreements. A revised liberal intergovernmentalist account that considers nation-states’ non-economic national interests would explain better than transnationalist-like accounts do the pursuit and negotiation of NAFTA’s environmental side and parallel agreements, as well as the institutional structure that resulted from them.

Conclusion: Once Intergovernmental, Always Intergovernmental?

Although it could be argued that li-like accounts of North American integration might adequately explain the origins of this process, they do not satisfactorily explain its overall development to date. The everyday use of the cross-border rules and the actions of transnational actors (including individuals, communities, activists, and non-governmental organizations) and regional institutions have changed the original intergovernmental nature of the process, even if in a limited manner and only in the environmental policy arena.

The implementation of NAAEC and BECA and the creation of CEC, BECC, and NADB are innovations in the environmental policy area in North America. Cross-border rules on environmental protection did not exist in North America before the implementation of NAFTA’s side and parallel agreements (NAAEC and BECA) in 1994. Although bilateral collaboration and cooperation on environmental issues between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico go back to the early twentieth century, the governments did not engage each other trilaterally until the implementation of these agreements. Before them, there were bilateral and bi-national but not regional agreements or institutions on these issues. Their implementation and operation over the past 23 years filled a gap in the institutional framework for the conservation, protection, and enhancement of the region’s environment by addressing some of the socio-economic and environment-related concerns of individuals, non-governmental organizations, and border communities on the implementation of NAFTA. During and after the negotiations of this trade agreement, various individuals, non-governmental organizations, and other civil society groups in the three countries argued that its implementation would result in a rapid degradation of the North American environment, especially in the U.S.-Mexico border area.

Purely liberal intergovernmentalist or transnational accounts of North American integration cannot adequately explain why and how transnational actors have used the cross-border rules, which were created by, agreed among, and purportedly suited to the interests of national governments. To date, these rules have been used to pursue changes to environmental practices, policies, and legislations throughout the three North American countries with moderate to significant success. Moreover, they cannot adequately explain the entrepreneurial nature that the regional institutions have displayed when addressing demands raised by North American citizens through the institutional mechanisms for public participation created by NAFTA’s side and parallel environmental agreements.

It should also be underscored that the CEC, BECC, and NADB are not supranational institutions. Consequently, none of them possesses ample powers, autonomy, or human or material resources to push for the use, development, and improvement of cross-border rules. They have, however, been venturesome in expanding their competencies by broadly interpreting their mandates. At times, this proactive behavior has enabled them to modify the provisions of the intergovernmental agreements in ways that the national governments had not intended. The demands of transnational actors and the responses of regional institutions to them contributed to increasing the relevance of cross-border rules to policy-making and policy implementation in the region. Transnational actors could not have achieved these outcomes without the active engagement of the regional institutions on the policy issues that they raised. Despite their constrained resources and power, over more than 24 years of operation, the three institutions have worked to expand their jurisdictions and mandates. During this time, they have transformed themselves into the most important institutions for environmental protection in North America at the regional level, even surpassing in importance long-standing bilateral and bi-national institutions that have historically dealt with environmental issues.¹⁸ Contrary to the rigid, reactive bi-national institutions that predated them, the new regional institutions have contributed to reviewing, reaffirming, and advancing the rules in ways that both addressed the demands of transnational actors and expanded their jurisdictions and mandates and strengthened their own capacities. I argue that these policy developments have significantly increased the degree of environmental policy interdependence among the three countries.

These policy developments, often disregarded in the current literature on North American integration, indicate that the process is more complex and extensive than is generally acknowledged. The substantive change from the non-existence of cross-border rules to their creation by national governments is an important development in the integration process. The increasingly important role of transnational actors and, most importantly, regional institutions indicates that even a revised liberal intergovernmentalist might have difficulties explaining the current state of North American integration, especially in the environmental policy area. An approach that takes into account the combined actions of transnational actors and regional institutions is likely to explain better the most recent institutional and policy developments in this arena.