Where Human Rights and Environmental Rights Collide

Yesterday, an Inter-American court ruled against Mexico in a case that involved threats, torture, and environmental degradation.  Two peasant ecologists, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, were trying to protect a mountain against illegal logging when they found themselves confronted by the Mexican army.

In 1999, the army arrested them for peacefully blocking roads, and the government charged them with bogus drug and weapons crimes.  Members of the army then beat the two men and threatened to harm their families.  Two years later, the international community pressured the Mexican government enough to release Montiel and Cabrera, but they were never pardoned.

Yesterday's decision held that the Mexican government had violated the men's rights to liberty, personal integrity, due process, and judicial protection.  The court ordered Mexico to pay damages to Montiel and Cabrera as to properly investigate the instances of torture they experienced so that those responsible can be brought to justice.

Before this ruling, the Mexican military investigated its own matters when the military was alleged to have engaged in illegal activity.  This often led to coerced confessions and substantive impunity.  Now, the government, not the military, must investigate the matter.  So far, Mexico has said that it would abide by the binding decision.

You can read the whole story here.

How Not to Fight Mexico's Drug War

Monday, June 28, 2010 University of California, San Diego

6:30 pm - 7:45 pm

Cost: free, students; $10, public

Ken Roth will address whether human rights concerns should be a factor in withholding U.S. funding that supports Mexico’s fight against drug cartels (Merida Initiative). He will discuss the direct impact of the drug war on Mexican society and the nexus between drugs, security and human rights. In 1993, Roth became executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the largest human rights organizations in the world, which conducts fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in over 80 countries. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth was drawn to the human rights cause by his father's experience fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938. He began working on human rights after the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, and soon became deeply engaged in fighting military repression in Haiti. In his years as executive director, Human Rights Watch has quadrupled in size, while greatly expanding its thematic and geographic reach. Event will be held at University of California, San Diego's Institute of the Americas in Hojel Hall of the Americas Auditorium. Visit the Institute of the Americas website for map and parking information. Free for all students, press or faculty. Click here to register and indicate your affiliation in the notes section $10 per person for public. To register using electronic payment, click here. To pay cash at the door, click here to register Presented by Human Rights Watch and Institute of the Americas. Co-sponsored by Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice; San Diego World Affairs Council; Trans-Border Institute; and United Nations Association, San Diego

Joan B. Kroc Institute For Peace & Justice | ipj@sandiego.edu | (619) 260-7509