The NAFTA Countries

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) of 1938 of the United States of America was completed in 1958 by the Food Additives Amendment. This amendment established the requirement of safety , which led to a major change in the Food and Drug Administration s (FDA) approach to its activities. The US Congress applied the term safe as the criterion for action, thereby supplementing, but not replacing, the use of the term adulteration . The result was a shift in focus - from an approach which emphasised evaluation of the food in its entirety to one which emphasised evaluation of individual food components. 

The Congress described the term safety as reasonable certainty that no harm will result from the proposed use of an additive , recognising that it is not possible to prove that no harm will result under any conceivable circumstances. However, it was generally interpreted to mean that if an additive is safe, there is no risk associated with it. Accordingly, the amendment directed FDA to consider consumption patterns, the cumulative effect of the ingredient in the diet of man or animals, and appropriate safety factors. 

Under the Food Additives Amendment, FDA s regulatory activities became divided between continuing the past practices which relied on the prohibitions against adulteration under Section 402 and the even more elaborate procedures under the new provisions of the Food, Dmg and Cosmetic Act in Section 409. 

Congress, furthermore, changed the traditional requirement that FDA prove adulteration, by establishing the then novel approach that industry must prove safety. Therefore, FDA was able to place the data-collection burden on the petitioners. FDA became a reviewer, a specialised evaluator. 

While such a regulation relating to a food additive is in effect, a food shall not, by reason of bearing or containing such an additive in accordance with the regulation, be considered adulterated. 

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The importance of U.S. tolerances stems from both the stringency of the scientific evaluation process upon which they are based and the important role of the U.S. in international food trade. Some countries actually defer to U.S. tolerances in lieu of their own legislation for export purposes (e.g., Costa Rica, Mexico). It is expected that U.S. tolerances will be highly influential in future development of MRL policy within the NAFTA countries, particularly as regional harmonization efforts may some day lead to a system of NAFTA MRLs. The FQPA-mandated tolerance reassessment process has resulted in many changes in U.S. tolerances, particularly the loss or reduction of tolerances for some older products, and these changes have the potential to impact use and food export practices in U.S. trading partners. 

In the short term, NAFTA has been a blessing for the United States and a struggle for Mexico. In the long term, it is expected to bring positive growth for all the NAFTA countries. 

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The agreement eliminates tariffs on most goods originating in and traveling between the three member countries. It was approved by the legislatures of the three countries and had entered into force by January 1994. When it was created, NAFTA formed one of the largest free-trade areas of its kind in the world. 

Canada is leading an initiative for the development of common review templates for OECD Member Countries. The occupational and residential exposure review templates developed under the NAFTA Technical Working Group on Pesticides are being proposed. These study review templates for occupational and residential exposure are currently being piloted by evaluators in the USA and Canada. 

During the interference, parties can rely on inventive activities occurring in the United States and, with certain limitations, a North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (NAFTA)country or a World Trade Organization (WTO) country to prove a date of invention before the actual filingdate (146). The parties cannot rely on inventive activities within non-NAFTA or non-WTO countries to establish a date of invention in such cases the parties will be limited to their foreign priority date as the date of invention. Thus, in an in-... 

Currently, the protection afforded trade secrets in Mexico is relatively limited and weak. The situation is likely to change because of the recent adoption of NAFTA. NAFTA, covering the United States, Canada, and Mexico, requires each country, at a minimum, to provide "adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, specifically including trade secret rights. The actual effect of NAFTA must, of course, await its actual implementation in the member countries. 

As Figure 9-3 shows, NAFTA countries have the biggest demand, followed by Europe. Asia Pacific with 20% and rest of the world (ROW) with 5% are quite a lot smaller, but as more and more global paint companies are building up production... 

Consumer goods can be divided into two categories durables and nondurables. Consumer durables include household appliances, power tools, lawn and garden equipment, recreational goods, toys, etc. This market segment is widely diversified, with some very profitable niche opportunities. The downside of business in consumer durables is that the product life cycles are often short and many applications are highly price sensitive. While most of this market is national, the great majority of end users purchase not only from suppliers in the three North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) countries—the United States, Canada, and Mexico—but internationally, particularly China. Many processors and material suppliers have followed these users overseas in order to serve their customer more effectively than is possible from a firm sited only in the United States. 

Other efforts at harmonizing food laws occur between partners of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) involving the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and between Australia and New Zealand. A suggested approach to legislative harmonization is depicted in Figure 12-4. The existence of a model food act developed by CA should be an incentive in bringing about harmonization within and between countries. 

Harmonization initiatives can occur as a result of specific agreements between two or more countries, as in Europe (EU) through the European Conunission (EC), in North America under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or more broadly under the umbrella of international nongovernmental organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

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