Leaders of the tri-national environmental agency created under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) have promised to provide stakeholders a forum for discussion of Chapter 11, Nafta’s controversial investor-protection provision. The environment ministers of Canada, Mexico and the United States, who collectively form the governing council of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), made the announcement at the CEC’s annual meeting last month in Ottawa. They pledged to organize a forum where stakeholders could express their views to the Nafta Chapter 11 Experts Group—a panel that monitors implementation of the measure and makes recommendations to the three Nafta nations’ trade ministers. Prompting the move was a request by the CEC’s advisory body, the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), that the governing... [Log in to read more]