9. Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)

Abstract

The CEC was created in 1994 under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), which was concluded by Canada, Mexico, and the United States as a side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The CEC’s mission is to facilitate collaboration and public participation to foster conservation, protection, and enhancement of the North American environment for the benefit of present and future generations. A Council composed of Cabinet-level environmental officials from each of the NAAEC parties governs the CEC, oversees the implementation of the agreement, and oversees the CEC Secretariat, while a fifteen-member Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) acts as an independent advisory body to the Council on any matter within the scope of the agreement. The CEC Secretariat is headquartered in Montreal and has a liaison office in Mexico City. It is headed by an executive director who oversees programs fostering co-operation on various North American environmental matters, the development of independent Secretariat reports on North American environmental issues, and a unit that processes citizen submissions on enforcement matters (SEM process). On 26 October, the Council appointed Irasema Coronado as the seventh executive director of the CEC Secretariat. The new director began a three-year term on 1 December. Coronado was formerly a JPAC member appointed in May 2010 by President Barack Obama and served as JPAC chair in 2011 (more information is available at <http://www.cec.org>).