From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright" : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda
Chapter Two
North American Digital Copyright, Regional Governance, and the Potential for Variation
Blayne Haggart
In 1994, Canada, the United States, and Mexico implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was designed to provide a framework for the governance of a North American economy. One of the most significant parts of the agreement was Chapter 17, which dealt with intellectual property (IP) and was designed to bring Mexican IP law in line with that of the United States (Canadian IP law was already substantially similar to that of the US). Referring to the copyright sections of Chapter 17, Acheson and Maule describe the treaty as a step in the continuing har- monization of North American copyright law, itself embedded in a pro- cess of global harmonization spearheaded by the 1995 Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

