Highlights
– Amnesty International reports Mexico “glosses over” human rights violations
– Mexican government sees institutional corruption as principal human rights risk
– US Congress questioning further installments of the Merida Initiative on reports of human rights violations
On February 9, 2009 Amnesty International released an alternative report that argued the Government of Mexico avoided key human rights concerns in its report to the UN Human Rights Commission this month. Although Mexican officials have not publicly responded to the civil society’s claims, the initial report to the Council included reference to weaknesses in Mexican law-enforcement institutions as a primary concern for human rights abuses. The alternative report may delay installations of the Merida Initiative in the near-term; however, we assess that installments of the aid program will likely continue in the medium-term despite current human rights discrepancies.
Universal Periodic Review
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process is the first UN mechanism to examine the human rights records of each of its 192 member states. The UPR is scheduled for 48 countries each year from 2008 to 2011. Currently, governments scheduled for examination during February 2009 include China, Cuba, Germany, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia.
The UPR process stipulates that governments are able to compose and submit a report on their fulfillment of human rights obligations for review by the Human Rights Council. Each government is required to participate in a dialogue with other states, where leaders present country status reports, take and answer questions and recommendations are given by the body to enhance human rights successes. Furthermore, civil society organizations, such as Amnesty International are encouraged to submit their own contributions to the UPR process in efforts to inform the review.
Amnesty International released an alternative report to the HRC on February 10, 2009 indicating that the Mexican government did not sufficiently acknowledge the impact of its policies, or the nation’s continued and worsening human rights violations.
Amnesty International’s report highlighted ten principal areas in which the Government of Mexico is failing to adequately meet its human rights obligations:
1. Mexico has so far failed to explicitly recognize the status of international human rights treaties in its Constitution.
2. The authorities have yet to hold anyone to account for the 100 killings and 700 enforced disappearances that took place between the 1960s and 1980s.
3. Mexican federal, state and municipal police officers implicated in serious human rights violations, such as arbitrary detention, torture, rape and unlawful killings, particularly those committed during civil disturbances in San Salvador Atenco and Oaxaca City in 2006, have not been brought to justice.
4. The military justice system continues to try cases of human rights violations despite international human rights standards insisting these should be tried in civilian courts.
5. The number of reports of abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, sexual violence and unlawful killings by security officials has increased during security operations to combat violent criminal gangs.
6. Human rights defenders, particular those in rural areas, often face persecution and sometimes prolonged detention on the basis of fabricated or politically-motivated criminal charges.
7. Indigenous and other marginalized communities sometimes face harassment for opposing development projects affecting their livelihoods.
8. Irregular migrants in transit through Mexico routinely face ill-treatment by state officials as well as sexual and other violence at the hands of criminal gangs.
9. Despite advances in legislation to protect women from violence, implementation is weak. Reporting, prosecution and conviction rates for those responsible for domestic violence, rape and even killings of women remain extremely low. Two years after the adoption of the 2007 General Law to Prevent Violence Against Women, two states have not even introduced legislation to enforce it.
10. Poverty and marginalization continue to deprive many rural communities, particularly indigenous peoples, of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to development, in accordance with their own needs and interests.
International Effects
Although Mexican officials have not responded to the alternative report, its presentation to the UPR originally included mention that the state needed to “clean up” and professionalize its police forces, indicating that the Mexican government views institutional corruption issues as the primary source of Mexican human rights abuses.
• Between January 2007 and June 2008, 50 incidents of unlawful killings, rape, torture and arbitrary detention were reported against military troops deployed across the state.
• Nearly 200,000 police officers in Mexico failed security, psychological or background tests in 2008.
• Tijuana-based Binational Center for Human Rights reported recently that torture inside Mexican police installations are dramatically increasing as the “war on drugs” persists.
• In 2008, more than 12 high-level security officials were accusued of ties to Mexican drug cartels.
United States (US) lawmakers are paying close attention to the Mexican government’s response to the Amnesty report as an indicator for future installments of it $400 million Merida Initiative. In 2008, scheduled appropriations were suspended for similar human rights concerns and the US Congress is currently awaiting a report from the US Department of State (DoS) regarding the Mexican judicial system, and whether it maintains standards to prosecute police and military forces accused of human rights violations and whether the government prohibits the use of testimony obtained through torture or other ill treatment.
It is likely the Amnesty International report may delay further installations of the Merida Initiative in the near-term for fear that aid and materials will be diverted into corrupt hands. However, as recent military reports, such as the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2008, indicate that the US government believes that Mexican cartels pose a grave threat to Mexican and US homeland security, it is likely that installments of the aid program will continue in the near to medium-term despite current human rights discrepancies.
