Implementation and Administration of Free Trade Agreements: Market Access Provisions

The Inter-American Development Bank commissioned a wide series of studies on the challenges and opportunities encountered in the process of implementing the key obligations of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Some of these studies have concentrated on market access issue with a particular emphasis on the FTA provisions related to customs and trade facilitation. This paper will examine these matters through the lens of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The purpose of this analysis is to identify a series of implementation best practices and lessons learnt so that other parties may implement their own FTA obligations in the most efficient, effective ways and to use their own implementation process to strengthen domestic institutional capacity and competitiveness.