Weighing up the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement

This policy brief analyzes the Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (ECA) and Chapter 24 of the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), evaluating how they replace the environmental frameworks of NAFTA. The author examines the role of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), changes to dispute settlement, and new definitions regarding trade and environmental enforcement.

• The Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (ECA) maintains the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which consists of a Council of environment ministers (and the US EPA Administrator), a Secretariat, and a Joint Public Advisory Committee. However, the CEC has lost its authority to produce unsolicited 'Article 13 reports', which previously allowed the Secretariat to conduct direct analysis of trade's environmental impacts, such as a report on transgenic maize in Mexico.
• CUSMA introduces a broad and novel definition of 'affecting trade or investment' in Article 24.4, footnote 4. This definition strengthens commitments to enforce environmental laws and multilateral agreements on marine pollution, ozone depletion, and endangered species by including any person or industry that produces a good or service traded between parties, or competes with a good or service of another party.
• The dispute settlement process for environmental issues has shifted from the NAFTA-era arbitral panels to a 'ladder' approach. This sequence begins with consultations, moves to the CUSMA Environment Committee, proceeds to ministerial consultations, and finally reaches the general CUSMA dispute settlement regime.
• The ECA includes a pioneering, though non-binding, provision on gender (Article 10.4) that allows the Council to request recommendations on gender and diversity effects within the Work Program. Additionally, the Work Program lists 27 potential activities across five areas, including green growth and biodiversity; notably, while climate change is not explicitly mentioned, the list includes renewable energy sources and low-emission economies.
• Chapter 24 of CUSMA establishes specific hard commitments that exceed existing multilateral environmental agreements, specifically regarding the prohibition of commercial great whale killing and shark finning, the reduction of marine litter, the targeting of illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries, and the reduction of fisheries subsidies.

APA

Cosbey, A. (2019). Weighing up the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/environmental-cooperation-agreement-policy-brief.pdf

Chicago

Cosbey, Aaron. Weighing up the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2019. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/environmental-cooperation-agreement-policy-brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Cosbey |first1=Aaron |title=Weighing up the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=February 2019 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/environmental-cooperation-agreement-policy-brief.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cosbey2019weighing, author = {Cosbey, Aaron}, title = {{Weighing up the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/environmental-cooperation-agreement-policy-brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }