Mexican Law Review

The Relevance of Climate Change to Contract Law

Gonzalo Vial Fourcade — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Climate change is a problem with an extremely wide scope, both in its consequences and in the solutions required to tackle it. In this context, this article reflects on whether climate change is a matter of legal significance to the field of contract law. As a conclusion, it is argued that the phenomenon is relevant for contract law for at least three reasons, namely: that such a legal field provides tools that are useful to address the climate problem; that the climate crisis raises several legal challenges for the field, and that climate change has altered the legal landscape of contract law and will continue to do so.

Patents in Medicine and Health as an Integral Human Right

Iliana Rodríguez Santibáñez — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article focuses on the relationship between medical patents and the right to health as an integral human right. The divergent interests involved in this issue are evaluated from the perspective of international law, which seeks to reconcile conflict through treaties and agreements of international organizations to find the balance best suited to benefit humanity. This study highlights the tension between patent law covering medicines and vaccines and the health needs of vulnerable populations in areas affected by armed conflicts and pandemics. In today’s globalized world, sometimes referred to as the knowledge society, conflicts between patent rights and the human right to health are best resolved using transparent international institutions designed to promote international cooperation.

Report on Abusive Judicial Review of Electoral Matters

José Oliveros Ruiz — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It is commonplace to state that the borderline courts are the last obstacle in the defense of fundamental rights, the rule of law, the division of powers, and hence, of constitutional democracy. Nevertheless, there are judgments of last resort which are very illustrative examples of argumentative practices used to conceal decisions that may be systematically politicized, and therefore can be detrimental to fundamental electoral rights, to the certainty and legality of electoral acts and resolutions, as well as to the holding of free, authentic, and periodical elections. The practice of using the democratic legitimacy of the judicial function to intentionally undermine the core of democracy is barely theorized. However, it is highly possible that in the future these types of attack will be part of the authoritarian tools used by groups of an anti-democratic nature. That is to say, the circumstance that the courts and not the political actors are the ones that implement undemocratic measures with the advantage of the difficulty for its identification, given the traditional role assigned to the judiciary in the democratic constitutional state of law, makes it essential to review the use of the weighting of the argumentative representation. This, in order to prevent democracy from being damaged by constitutional interpretation and to avoid the tolerance for the absence of a minimum social consensus on the arguments that it intends to sustain with re-
lative temporary stability. Even more so, when it comes to those who make up the constitutional jurisdiction specialized in elections and democracy. In Mexico, the Superior Court of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) is the highest electoral court. This body has issued controversial and transcendent decisions for electoral democracy which can be subject to critical legal analysis as an input for legislative activity. This is particularly related to issues concerning citizen participation such as the revocation of mandate and the imposition of sanctions due to its diffusion by public servants, as well as cases of gender-based political violence (VPG, by its acronym in Spanish) and the deprivation of an honest way of living (MHV, by its acronym in Spanish) as a sanction. Another topic worth considering is the rulings on the modification or defective abandonment of the jurisprudence in matters such as the assumption of competence over parliamentary acts in the integration of the administrative or government bodies by the Congress of the Union, and the messages of the legislators, which are not protected by the principle of parliamentary immunity, as has been established.

Narratives and Practices in Pre-Trial Hearings: A Legal Anthropological Approach to Judicial Efficiency

Ricardo Iván Vásquez López — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to shed light on the practical organization of judicial operators in the pre-trial hearings of local Mexico City courts. Firstly, the aim is to describe cognitive, social, and objective formations, both conscious and volitional, linked to achieving the goals of the judicial bureaucracy in the practice of preliminary hearings in the justice system (the distribution, organization, and interpretation of the work) that take place and shape the social-judicial domain. Ethnographic observation and the narratives of agents in this field yield a theoretical framework formed by the actor-network theory, anthropological concepts from Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology and Bourdieu’s ideas of social field to provide a better description of agent practices in the field that produce a judicial “efficiency” that sustains, maintains, and drives the bureaucracy of the justice system, specifically during pre-trial hearings.

Complate journal

Mexican Law Review — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Preliminary

Mexican Law Review — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Arraigo in Mexico: Violation of International Law

Julio Martínez Hernández — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For the development of this note, I will begin by exposing the different components, giving a brief introduction to the doctrines that make up public international law, its application in Mexico, general conception of human rights, international human rights framework, and human rights in Mexico, description of arraigo, its constitutional and legal basis, practices, and results for the achievement of justice. The intention is to establish if the practice of arraigo in Mexico constitutes a violation of the state’s international obligations.