Research On The Substantive Rules Of Environmental Clauses In The USMCA

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement(USMCA)is a regional trade agreement(RTA)that upgraded to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA),with Chapter 24 of the USMCA as a special section on environmental provisions.The environmental provisions in USMCA absorb the achievements of American trade negotiations on environmental issues over the years,and has a strong color of American dominance.But at the same time,it integrates the environmental issues among the United States,Mexico and Canada,and responds to the difficult environmental issues under the WTO system,which makes USMCA cover a wide range of environmental issues.Further,the USMCA addresses specific environmental issues by the introduction of a number of Multilateral Environmental Agreements(MEA).These MEAs are so specific that the environmental provisions become very enforceable.The environment provisions in USMCA embody the position of the three North American countries on environmental issues,which has a far-reaching impact on other regional trade agreements and multilateral trade rules.As far as China is concerned,it does not pay attention to the negotiation of environmental issues when signing trade agreements with other countries.There are some disadvantages in setting environmental provisions,such as vague wording,low standards and lack of uniformity.There is a lot of room for improvement.Therefore,USMCA has a strong practical significance for China.In this paper,the substantive rules of environmental provisions in USMCA are studied,combined with the past cases of environmental disputes,the specific rules are analyzed,and their characteristics and impacts are pointed out.This paper is divided into three parts.The specific content is as follows:First of all,this paper combs the historical origin and evolution of the environmental provisions in USMCA.And analyzes the basic causes of the conflicts between trade development and environmental protection.The historical changes of the United States and other countries from seeking to establish environmental rules under the WTO system to setting environmental provisions in RTA are reviewed.Then,it analyzes the development of NAFTA and USMCA led by the USA and focuses on the substantive rules of environmental provisions,and expounds the importance of substantive rules.Secondly,this paper makes a concrete analysis of the substantive rules of environmental provisions in USMCA.Firstly,the text analysis of the main content of the environmental provisions in USMCA is given,and the progress of the rule setting is discussed.Then it analyzes the implementation mechanism of USMCA,and discusses how USMCA realizes the goal of adjusting the conflict of environment and trade between USA,Mexico and Canada.Combined with the past cases of environmental related trade disputes,the paper discusses the particularity and limitation of the substantive rules.Finally,this paper analyzes the impact of USMCA signing.Mainly for the USMCA reproducibility analysis,divided into three levels.First,the reproducibility to other RTA,including the basis of reproducibility,content and so on.Second,the reproducibility of multilateral trade rules,whether it will reshape the existing WTO structure.Third,the impact on China,mainly analyzes the opportunities and challenges of USMCA,and the legal risks that Chinese enterprises will encounter when they enter the North American market,and gives some suggestions.