Trade Agreements and Progressive Governance

The adoption in the mid-1990s of the investment and services chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the establishment of the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) were significant breakthroughs for corporations attempting to ‘secure protection for property rights and investor freedoms on a world scale’ (Gill 2000a: 9).1 Such international treaties extend far beyond trade, binding signatory governments at the federal, state and local levels and restricting all types of government measures, including laws, regulations, procedures, requirements and practices.2 They become external constitutions, disciplining governments and shrinking their policy flexibility in matters once considered to be mainly internal.3