The USMCA and the Integration of Energy Sectors
The next presentation in the Texas A&M Energy Institute Lecture Series: Master of Science in Energy Webinars, featuring Prof. Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez, an Associate Professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, will be held on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CST (GMT -6:00) through an online Zoom meeting. The topic will be “The USMCA and the Integration of Energy Sectors.”
Abstract
Dr. Garcia Sanchez is currently researching the barriers preventing energy integration of the North America region. Of particular importance to his research is the protection afforded to foreign investors in the energy sector. An example of the type of barriers that prevent integration, and the subject of the webinar, are the complaints by U.S. companies against recently enacted policies in Mexico that aim to strengthen the state-owned companies PEMEX and CFE. Forty-three members of Congress, including Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, officially requested the intervention of the White House in the dispute because they see the current policies by the Lopez Obrador administration as a threat to U.S. energy companies’ investment and market access. As the talk will explain, the conflict calls into serious question the effectiveness of the recently-approved United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and may be the most important investment dispute with the U.S. Southern neighbor since Mexico’s expropriation of U.S. oil companies in 1938.
Biography
Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez is an Associate Professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law. His research and teaching focuses on international energy and investment law, with an emphasis on U.S.-Latin America relations. Before entering academia, he was an associate in Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle’s international arbitration team, and served as a legal advisor in Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prof. Garcia Sanchez holds an S.J.D. and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. in International Law from the Fletcher School of Law Diplomacy, and a Law and an International Relations Bachelor Degree from ITAM University in Mexico.