Abstract
This paper examines the impacts of free trade agreements, in particular the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on U.S. and Canadian food safety regulation,
with particular focus how each nation dealt with the emergence of indigenous cases of
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), the so-called “mad cow” disease. In contrast
to a robust literature comparing the U.S. and Canada on environmental matters, relatively
little work directly compares food safety regulation in the two federal systems. Moreover,
while there is some scholarship on environmental regulation under NAFTA, there is little
work in political science that examines the effects of NAFTA on U.S. and Canadian food
policy broadly understood or food safety regulation in particular. The scope and shape of
hemispheric trade in food products have changed profoundly in a very short period, and
an assessment of the impacts of NAFTA on food safety regulation in the two federal
systems is warranted.
Convention