The Political Economy of NAFTA Chapter Eleven: Equality Before the Law and the Boundaries of North American Integration

23 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 303 (2000)

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Issues regarding the NAFTA Chapter 11 investment dispute mechanism are part of a larger context of issues that arose in connection with the transformation of the GATT dispute settlement mechanism into the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, and were reflected in the breakdown of the OECD negotiations on a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the Seattle Ministerial Conference (SMC). These issues relate to multilateral and regional governance: who is authorized to make decisions, and how are those decisions made and carried out on behalf of international society? In short, there are increasing public demands for transparency, democratic representation and accountability that, on the one side, are legitimate and useful but, on the other side, are creating tremendous stresses on multilateral governance mechanisms. At the moment, we are reaching something of a crisis point reflecting the inability of governments to make and execute policy - a situation that demands close attention and creative solutions.