La Impunidad Activa en México
CHALLENGING IMPUNITY IN MEXICO
Read the Executive Summary Here (en español)
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Mexico faces a grave human rights crisis characterized by numerous cases of extrajudicial executions and the systematic, widespread practice of forced disappearance and torture, among other types of violations that take place in a context of practically absolute impunity. The absence of individual criminal responsibility and of the corresponding punishment for the perpetrators establishes and reinforces an institutional context in which crime and human rights violations are reproduced with minimal resistance, incentivizing its systematic reproduction.
Through the careful analysis of a series of cases, this report offers evidence that impunity in the wake of human rights violations tends to result from a series of actions undertaken for the explicit purpose of ensuring that there will be no punishment or penalty for those responsible, which this impact-oriented research calls “active impunity.” It also identifies different concrete mechanisms by which this impunity is produced. The verification of non-accidental or instrumental-strategic impunity leads the authors of this report to argue in favor of the establishment in Mexico of some framework of international supervision of justice that will help to break the country’s vicious cycle of impunity. To this end, the authors review in detail a number of experiences along these lines, implemented in recent years in Mexico and other Latin American countries, and draw lessons and best practices from them. To conclude, they summarize their main arguments and make a series of concrete recommendations aimed at implementing an international mechanism for supervising the administration of justice in Mexico.
THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY NETWORK
The University Network has been supporting the work of several institutions in Mexico to determine the causes of large-scale impunity for gross human rights violations, with a focus on the cooptation of state bodies by organized criminal elements.
Together with ITESO (with a team lead by Prof. Alejandro Anaya), University Network students have worked to identify the factors that undermine investigations and protections. The project develops recommendations, including potential international involvement, to bolster efforts of Mexican authorities and civil society to end the country’s deadly cycle of impunity. In collaboration with ITESO, we have published our findings in a book-length report titled La impunidad activa en México: Cómo entender y enfrentar las violaciones masivas a los derechos humanos.