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Border Officials' Cross Talk: Advancing North American Governance

Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus, February 13, 2008

About the event:
NACTS, in partnership with numerous academics and practitioners, worked to bring together the long-term vision of academia with the know-how of contemporary practice to glean lessons learned and determine how best to improve border management to promote a safer, more prosperous, more competitive, more cooperative and more sustainable North American region.

The purpose of the event was to bring together border practitioners and academics working on both the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders to discuss best practices for border management. The event was unique in that an opportunity for a meaningful and continuing comparative cross talk between these groups had not previously existed.

The format featured officials from federal and trilateral agencies throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico responding to written and verbal queries from academics. Approximately forty academics and practitioners from Canada, the United States, and Mexico addressed the primary query of the Cross Talk:

“How can the three nations and other ‘states’ find meaningful and sustainable ways to identify, develop, preserve, protect, operate, inspect, and/or accommodate the common assets, resources, and natural systems that, necessarily, will continue to be controlled by each sovereign regime, yet at the same time, clearly exist across the borders?”

Discussions and Conclusions:

Participants emphasized qualitative factors such as the potential of “soft power,” the influence of perceptions, the value of information and communication, and the overarching importance of quality of life for border residents. They called for the need to conceptualize a North American identity, to embrace trilateralism instead of dual bilateralism, and to build North America as a community instead of simply an accident of geography. It was generally agreed that disconnects at the heart of the current debate obscure this continental reality and weaken its foundations, making all North Americans poorer and less secure.

Since 9/11, security has become the main focus on the border, hindering informal local solutions, demanding more resources, and changing the political climate. While a number of strong binational institutions that safeguard the environment exist, more efficient bureaucracy and inter-agency cooperation is increasingly necessary. Finally, while NAFTA has been successful in increasing North American trade, our continent has been surpassed economically by China, and in the new reality, national economic competitiveness will have to be reconciled with the imperative of security to increase regional competitiveness and quality of life for all citizens of North America.

Participants made the following recommendations:

Collaboration:

  1. To increase North American cooperation, the three federal governments need to engage with civil society (private sector, universities, and non-governmental organizations) in a much more proactive and productive manner.
  2. The Security and Prosperity Partnership, as the primary trilateral forum, needs to include input from academic and other civil society interest groups.
  3. A North American common security perimeter or supplement should be implemented.
  4. Academic institutions, in turn, need to develop more robust teaching and “policy-transfer” models in order to more effectively  inform public debates and educate key constituencies. University-based expertise, when deployed thoughtfully, can enrich practitioners’ existing institutional knowledge, build important new institutional and civil society linkages, and deepen existing linkages.

Trade and Competitiveness

  1. The three nations need to take full advantage of continental geography.
  2. The north-south continental transportation infrastructure needs to be improved.
  3. NAFTA trucking needs to be implemented continent-wide without further delay.
  4. Mexico needs to be encouraged to assemble goods for distribution through out the continent, especially large items such as trucks, full-size refrigerators and freezers and flat screen television where Mexico has a clear advantage over China and other blocs.
  5. The three nations should build and implement trinational customs teams.

Transborder Environment

  1. Transborder environmental impact assessments should be carried out.
  2. The Border Environmental Infrastructure Fund should be funded.
  3. The three nations should create a continental system for trading greenhouse gas emission credits.

Papers Presented: 

Border Officials' Cross Talk 2008: Proceedings, Findings and Recommendations
How can the three nations and other “states” find meaningful and sustainable ways to identify, develop, preserve, protect, operate, inspect, and/or accommodate the common assets, resources, and natural systems that, necessarily, will continue to be controlled by the sovereign regime, yet at the same time, clearly exist across borders?

Border Officials' Cross Talk 2008: Framing Papers
Nine framing papers written by academics frame the issues presented and discussed at the Cross Talk.