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Chicken Little Revisited: Nafta Regulatory Expropriations After Methanex, Jessica C. Lawrence

Georgia Law Review

In August, 2005, a NAFTA dispute-resolution panel handed down its decision in Methanex Corp. v. United States, holding that, inter alia, California's regulatory ban on the gasoline additive MTBE was not a regulatory expropriation under NAFTA's Article 1110. Many of NAFTA's supporters reacted jubilantly to the decision, claiming that it proved--contrary to the "doomsday predictions" of anti-NAFTA "Chicken Littles"--that the agreement's investment chapter does not interfere with states' ability to enact regulations designed to protect the public interest. Such elation, however, is premature. This Note explains how, far from having "consigned to the garbage heap" the idea that the regulatory …