NAFTA - A Crime Against Humanity

NAFTA - A Crime Against Humanity

Generally, when most think of a crime against humanity, the most common synonym is genocide. Kosovo, Cambodia, Sudan, and Poland are all instances when genocide occurred and the public rightly labeled these instances as crimes against humanity. Within our modern world there are means other than the preconceived notion of genocide to systematically remove a specific group from their rights as humans. Using the relations between Mexico and the United States as an example, the need for a broadened interpretation of human rights violations will be established.

On January 1st 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The purpose of NAFTA is to reduce and eventually erase trade barriers, allowing the importing and exporting of goods and services to occur with ease. NAFTA began life as an agreement between the United States and Canada, and then in 1992, Mexico joined the venture. The union of these countries made sense, mainly because of their proximity to each other, and the benefits that each would soon come to realize. Some of the key contents in the NAFTA agreement include a removal of tariffs on goods, protection of intellectual property, and easier access to invest in foreign industries. These new trade agreements would increase the flow of cheap goods from Mexico to the U.S., thus lowering cost of living, and create higher paying jobs for the indigenous Mexican workers (Chomsky).

The generally con...