• NAFTA and CAFTA

NAFTA and CAFTA

This paper explores the question of civil society engagement with trade policy in Latin America, identifying key factors which shape the dynamics and possibilities of participation. These include:

• key strategic issues within the movements and among groups themselves
• the organisation of institutional access
• and key economic and political regional dynamics.

The authors compare three different sets of trade negotiations and institutional arrangements: NAFTA, Mercosur and FTAA, and examine the key drivers and shapers of change in each case through a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the environmental, labour and women’s movements. In examining the diverse forms of engagement and nonengagement, lessons are derived about the possibilities of constructing more effective, sustainable and transparent mechanisms of participation and representation in trade policy.

Some of the paper's conclusions and reflections are:

• the ability of groups to engage with those institutional channels that are available to them is a product of their resources and expertise and whether these are of value to trade policy decision-makers
• it is difficult for organisations to fully benefit from their engagement within larger trade processes, because of lack of resources
• constructing new spaces for participation in trade policy often does not equate with changes in power relations which continue to provide their own mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion
• it is difficult for organisations to gain access to the decision-making aspects of government
• there have been recent shifts in the relationship between state, market and civil society in Latin America - linked to the rise of Presidents Lula, Chavez, Lagos, Kirchner and Tabare Vazquez in South America
• whilst trade policy makers may lack the ability (or willingness) to address issues of capacity within civil society, they can at least work to ensure that mechanisms are in place for diverse groups to be represented in policy arenas that, despite the rhetoric, remain relatively closed and inaccessible to non-economic interest groups and elites
• there are important learning opportunities for civil society in other areas of the world that flow from this analysis.

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