LAS RELACIONES COMERCIALES MÉXICO-ESTADOS UNIDOS ANTE EL TLCAN

This paper draws a balance sheet of the mexican institutions created to implement the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), examining their effectiviness and their performance as supranational bodies and mechanisms. NAFTA’s institutions are considered as part of the broad process of institutional reforms begun in the 1980s as a result of the mexican trade opening. In that sense, the agreement is analyzed as a specific source of institutional change, particularly in it’s domestic dimension, where it has been behind modifications in the obligatory nature of Mexico´s legal system. While under NAFTA important changes in the mexican legal system have been made formally, in practice, problems persist. These affect the quality of the institutions, problems like corruption, low competitiveness, informal market, drug trafficking, contraband and poverty.