Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Expanding NAFTA

"Anthony DePalma argued that NAFTA was a historic milestone. However, while the big idea behind the European Community was clear" the prevention of another European war" he wondered aloud about the binding common interest behind NAFTA. He suggested that there was no similar master plan in the case of NAFTA. Rather, the three NAFTA partners were stumbling forward in the direction of community and towards the idea of the interrelationship between international and domestic policies. DePalma posed the question of the trade-off between sovereignty and "continental democracy."¯ For example, while all three states submitted themselves to tribunals to resolve trade disputes, the tribunals themselves are not democratic in that they do not conform to norms of transparency. He posed the question of whether continental homeland security could be a new organizing idea around which NAFTA moves forward."

"Carlos Heredia argued that the NAFTA countries should pursue a strategy of convergence and called for steps to be taken with vision and leadership in the direction of a North American parliament and the development of institutions that will strengthen democracy."

"Alan S. Alexandroff then evaluated "Feasible Globalizations" by Dani Rodrik of Harvard University. Rodrik argued that global markets are unsustainable without global governance, and that if there is to be no governance, there is a need to reduce and slow ambitions for worldwide economic integration."

A group supporting North American integration is preparing to hold its annual "North American Model Parliament" for students from the United States, Canada and Mexico… NAFI, according to the group’s website, is as a non-profit organization based in Montreal, dedicated to "address the issues raised by North American integration as well as identify new ideas and strategies to reinforce the North American region.

"To him, the strategy was clear. ‘This proposal [for a coal and steel community] has an essential political objective: to make a breach in the ramparts of national sovereignty, which will be narrow enough to secure consent” but deep enough to open the way toward the unity that is essential to peace [and we might add, for our purposes in the Americas, for development].’"

"As understood by Jean Monnet," he continued, "economic integration must and will lead to political integration, since an integrated market requires common institutions producing common rules to govern it."