scholarly journals NAFTA, Alberta Oil Sands Royalties, and Change: Yes We Can?

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard J. Roth

The Government of Alberta has recently announced that it intends to increase oil sands royalty rates. This article reviews these proposed changes to determine if they comply with the investment protection obligations Canada assumed under c. 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In addition to ensuring non-discriminatory treatment of investors, c. 11 of the NAFTA prohibits expropriation of investments without compensation. What constitutes expropriation under the NAFTA may be broader than the expropriation protection under either American or Canadian domestic law. The result is that American investors in Canada may have greater protection against expropriation than Canadian investors in Alberta. Likewise, Canadian investors in the United States may also be in a preferred position relative to American investors in their own country. The article concludes that the Government of Alberta may have to compensate U.S. investors in Alberta’s oil sands if it carries through with the oil sands royalty changes it has announced.

Author(s):  
Richard D. Mahoney

How did the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement come about? The officially named “U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement” was the stepchild of a rancorous hemispheric divorce between the United States and five Latin American governments over the proposal to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement...


1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward B. DeBellevue ◽  
Eric Hitzel ◽  
Kenneth Cline ◽  
Jorge A. Benitez ◽  
Julia Ramos-Miranda ◽  
...  

Subject Prospects for Mexico and Central America to end-2017. Significance The economies of Mexico and Central America will maintain a ‘business as usual’ stance until renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) formally starts later in the year. Growth momentum in the region is therefore likely to be maintained for the rest of 2017. Nonetheless, threats to trade and migration links with the United States, and to remittance income, will drive uncertainty.


2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory W. White

In June 2004, the United States signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Morocco. FTAs are typically thought of as economic agreements, but the agreement with Morocco has an explicit security component. Indeed, US officials have cast the agreement as an opportunity to support a close ally in the region, and its signing coincides with Morocco's denomination as a non-NATO ally of the US. Yet even if the FTA achieves its stated economic goals — a very tall and ambitious order — it remains to be seen whether or not the benefits will extend to a society divided by enormous social cleavages. As a result, the US-Moroccan FTA and Morocco's new found stature in US security policy paradoxically run the risk of deepening societal resentment within Morocco toward the government and, by extension, the US.


Elements ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hamilton

Longstanding incentives for migration have encouraged individuals to travel from Mexico to the United States in search of higher wages and economic survival. These incentives exist despite the stated goal of various officials to curb immigration to the United States. in fact, the migration of workers is a key facet in the historical relationship between the United States and Mexico. Several policies have contributed to the continued migration and have further entrenched a growing dependency between the two nations. This paper serves as an in-depth examination of the causes of this economic dependence and investigates what effect the latest of these policies, the North American Free Trade Agreement, has on the issue.


Author(s):  
John P. McCray

The dramatic growth in trade between the United States and Mexico from $12.39 billion to $56.8 billion of U.S. exports and $17.56 billion to $73 billion of U.S. imports between 1977 and 1996 and the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have focused attention on the impact that the truck-transported portion of this trade has on U.S. highways. State and federal highway administrators are concerned with the planning implications this additional unexpected traffic may have on the transportation infrastructure. Public advocacy groups want additional highway funds to promote one NAFTA highway corridor over others in an effort to stimulate additional economic development. Most of these groups advocate a north-south route through the United States between Canada and Mexico that follows the alignment of an existing federal highway number. Research conducted by the U.S. government under the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act has failed to define NAFTA highway corridors adequately, leaving policy makers with little concrete information with which to combat the rhetoric of the trade highway corridor advocacy groups. A report is provided on research critical to the needs of both highway administrators and corridor advocacy groups, namely, the location of U.S.-Mexican trade highway corridors and the trade truck density along these corridors.


2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Bettauer

The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States (NAFTA) entered into force on January 1, 1994. Chapter Eleven of NAFTA contains provisions governing investment protection and investor-state arbitration. In general, NAFTA provides investors of one of the parties protections for their investments in another NAFTA party, guaranteeing: treatment at least as good as that of host or third country investors (NAFTA articles 1102-1104); treatment in accordance with the minimum standards of customary international law (NAFTA article 1105); and compensation for expropriation (NAFTA article 1110). NAFTA article 1139 defines “investment” broadly but excludes contracts for the sale of goods or services. After meeting specified threshold requirements, such an investor has the right to international arbitration against the host state to vindicate these protections.


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