DR-CAFTA and the Environment
October 4-5, 2006
FUNGLODE/GFDD
Santo Domingo |
| Background |
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Justification |
The Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, DR-CAFTA, is designed to eliminate tariffs and trade barriers and expand regional opportunities for the workers, manufacturers, consumers, farmers, ranchers and service providers of all the countries. Eighty percent of CAFTA-DR imports already enter the United States duty free under the Caribbean Basin Initiative, Generalized System of Preferences and Most Favored Nation programs; CAFTA-DR will provide reciprocal access for U.S. products and services eliminating tariffs on more than 80 percent of U.S. exports of consumer and industrial products, phasing out the rest over 10 years.
It is expected that DR-CAFTA will also be an economic tool capable of reducing poverty, promoting growth and nurture the democratic progress of the past decade in Central America and the Dominican Republic while promoting free and liberalized trade throughout the world.
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Central America is a region with astounding biodiversity and important world ecosystems. It also is a region suffering from severe poverty and significant environment and public health problems. One important step to improving protection of the environment in Central America is poverty reduction through increased economic growth. Countries with higher national incomes tend to have stronger environmental protections and lower rates of pollution. Liberalized trade through DR-CAFTA is expected produce more and better paying jobs in Central America — and that prosperity will make it possible for the region to improve environmental protection.
DR-CAFTA assumes that liberalized trade can help improve environmental protection by lowering the barriers to the sale of environmental technologies; enabling new investments in environmental infrastructure; and facilitating access to environmental scientists, engineers and technicians to the people of Central America and the Dominican Republic. It is expected that, upon implementation of DR-CAFTA, many American environmental goods will be able to enter the countries of Central America duty free. Improved provision of such goods and services is particularly important to improve public health and environmental protection in the region. |
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| Purpose |
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| Some of the features of the Agreement in this field are: |
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Main new environmental features of the Agreement include: |
Ensure that trade and environmental policies are mutually supportive, seek to protect and preserve the environment, and enhance the international means of doing so, while optimizing the use of the world’s resources.
Seek provisions in trade agreements under which parties to those agreements strive to ensure that they do not weaken or reduce the protections afforded in domestic environmental laws as an encouragement for trade.
Ensure that parties do not fail to effectively enforce environmental laws through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction.
Strengthen the capacity of U.S. trading partners to protect the environment through the promotion of sustainable development.
Reduce or eliminate government practices or policies that unduly threaten sustainable development. |
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DR-CAFTA’s citizen submission process, which targets non-enforcement of environmental laws, is the first ever citizen complaint procedure included in a trade agreement.
DR-CAFTA’s support for voluntary mechanisms to enhance environmental performance represents the first time a trade agreement recognizes and encourages incentives to encourage conservation and protection of the environment.
DR-CAFTA’s explicit recognition of multilateral environmental agreements represents the first time a trade agreement calls on parties to enhance the effectiveness of multilateral environmental agreements.
An open discussion among local and international specialists regarding the short and long term environmental impact the enforcement of the Agreement will have in the Dominican Republic and the region is greatly necessary. |
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| October 5th |
CAFTA-DR: Avances en el cumplimiento de las obligaciones ambientales – Nicaragua. |
Catherin Cattafesta. USAID. Proyecto IPEP – IRG. Bienes y servicios ambientales y su relación con DR-CAFTA |
Claudia S. de Windt. Oficial Legal. DDS-OEA.
El desarrollo sostenible y el medio ambiente en el RD-CAFTA : El papel de los organismos internacionales y regionales |
Dirección general de normas y sistemas de calidad. RD-CAFTA Y LAS CERTIFICACIONES MEDIOAMBIENTALES Y DE CALIDAD |
Elías Gómez Mesa. Secretaria de Estado de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Secretaria de Gestion Ambiental. Programa de Produccion Limpia. Producción Limpia y Competitividad Empresarial Dominicana en relación al DR-CAFTA |
Pamela Teel, Coordinadora de Programas en Centroamerica y Caribe
Office of International Activities. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Acuerdo EPA-DOS para DR-CAFTA |
Secretaria de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente - Honduras. Avances en el cumplimiento de las obligaciones ambientales |
Sofia Plagakis. Center for International Environmental Law. Civil society participation under DR-CAFTA |
William Kaschak. USAID. DR-CAFTA: Implicaciones para la conservacion y manejo sostenible de recursos naturales |
Yocasta Valenzuela. Secretaría de Estado de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Retos y Oportunidades del medioambiente en el marco del DR_CAFTA |
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| October 4th |
Claudia S. de Windt. Oficial Legal. DDS-OEA. El desarrollo sostenible y el medio ambiente en la agenda comercial de las Américas |
Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo. Antecedentes y avances en la implementación del capitulo ambiental del DR_CAFTA materia ambiental desde una perspectiva regional |
John Pendergrass. Environmental Law Institute. Senior Attorney, Co-Director International Programs.
International environmental law and international commercial treaties |
Max Puig. Secretario de Estado. El DR-CAFTA y el marco regulatorio ambiental Dominicano |
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