This research focus has grown out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the pact's Environmental Side Agreement.  The Environmental Side Agreement has brought the parties (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) together to work  cooperatively on solving regional environmental problems.  UCI researchers Professor Joseph DiMento and Pamela Doughman presented a research study in 1997 to the Joint Public Advisory Committee of NAFTA's Commission on Environmental Cooperation.  In expanded form this work was published in The Georgetown International Environmental Law Review in 1998.

The accomplishments of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation include:

•   Beginning the process of creating a North American common law of the environment;

•   Creating a North American fund to help local environmental and economic development organizations undertake sustainable projects in border communities;

•   Managing a compliance process that has cast public scrutiny on the environmental decision-making of Mexico, Canada, and the United States, and on the impacts of projects affecting sensitive coral reefs, wetlands and groundwater.

Learn more about the NAFTA colloquium held at UCI, May 25, 2001.