Mexico: The Mexican Republic rejects recommendations made by UPR

Universal Periodic Review (UPR): A country without human rights... is not a democracy

On February 2009, during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Mexico received various recommendations to advance human rights work. On June 11th of this year, Mexico responded to the recommendations during the sessions at the Council of Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. This new report has been widely criticized by various Human Rights organizations in Mexico: in one communique on July 12th, organizations stated that Mexico has flagrantly rejected recommendations relative to military justice, the impunity and past crimes, the definition of organized delinquency, and the judicial figure of the pre-trial detention. The communique states other issues in which Mexico has shown impotence or lack of interest to comply as a Republic of justice: violence against women, femicide, and legislative justice.

In its defense, Mexico exposed a series of facts that were considered as advances. One of these was the constitutional reform in matter of human rights. Nevertheless, the so called reform does not give constitutional priority to human rights, and as a consequence it misses the opportunity to give international human rights treaties constitutional ranking.

With concern, the organizations signing the press release including the Human Rights Center Fray Francisco Victoria, the Human Rights Center Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, the Human Rights Center Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, and the Human Rights Center de la Montaña, Tlachinollan, conclude that “the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has given us an opportunity so the international and national communities can become aware that a great deficit in the topic of human rights exists. The recommendations made by the UPR are added to the great number of recommendations that the Mexican State has recieved in last eleven years. What we now need is political will and effective actions by the federal government and from the state governments to implement them in their entirety.”

For more information (spanish only):

• “México rechaza recomendaciones del EPU”, SIDIDH (11/06/2009)
• “Informe de recomendaciones a raíz del EPU”
• “México descarta recomendaciones importante de derechos humanos de la ONU”, boletin de prensa (12/06/2009)
• Links para más información acerca del EPU y México, Cencos

More information from SIPAZ:

• Mexico: Mexico undergoes the Universal Periodic Review (February 2009)
• Mexico: human rights and security, an impossible puzzle? (Analysis of SIPAZ report April 2009)
• An X-ray of the state of rights in Mexico: the challenges and dangers of the judicial reform (Focus of SIPAZ report April 2009)