Fading Green? Environmental Politics in the Mercosur Free Trade Agreement

This article explores the role of environmental concerns in free trade areas made up entirely of developing countries. It surveys the environmental institutions of Mercosur, the Common Market of South America, and its member states. It also presents a case study of the recently terminated negotiations over a regional environmental legal instrument as an example of collective environmental decisionmaking. The article concludes that all the environmental components of the agreement are weak, and have even been downgraded in recent years. Even so, national environmental protections have increased during the years of the Mercosur agreement, and some regional actors are poised to join their northern counterparts in opposition to any potential free trade area of the Americas that does not include environmental provisions.