Multinational enterprise strategy and the NAFTA trade and environment regime

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the first international trade treaty to explicitly incorporate a process to accommodate political a spects of the natural environment. It does this primarily through the creat ion of the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), but also th rough associated committees and regulations. In this paper we use "regime" analysis from political science to assess these institutional aspects of NA FTA as they affect the strategics of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Ne d raw out implications for public policy and corporate strategy based on exte nsive interviews of relevant government and business leaders; as well as se nior bureaucrats involved in the administration of NAFTA trade and environm ent policy.