| Montreal, 22/04/2004 – On 20 April the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) dismissed the submission SEM-04-001, of Francisco H. Garza Vara for a second time on 16 March. Submitted on behalf of Genaro Meléndez Lugo and José Javier, José Genaro, Miguel Ángel, Carlos Ariel, Juan Antonio, Iris Elidia and Cruz Adriana Meléndez Torres (the Submitters), the revised version of the submission refers to noncompliance with and failure to effectively enforce several provisions of the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection (Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente—LGEEPA), its hazardous waste regulation and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). Specifically, the Submitters assert the failure of the Office of the Federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente—Profepa) to process a complaint filed by the Submitters against the company Ecolimpio de México, SA de CV and Transportes J. Guadalupe Jiménez, SA. The submission alleges that those companies operate illegally, causing serious damage to the environment, and the properties, health and physical well-being of the Submitters, due to the improper management of hazardous waste.
In its determination, the CEC Secretariat determined that the information provided by the Submitters is insufficient because, although it corrected the omissions found in the first version of the submission, this latest version does not clarify whether it was submitted to further enforcement of the law and not to harass an industry. The Submitters' legal representative, Francisco Garza Vara, has been described as the owner of a company called Garlok Industrial, which appears to have a business similar to that of Ecolimpio. This leaves the Secretariat unable to determine whether the submission meets the requirement in NAAEC Article 14(1)(d), since it remains possible that Garza Vara is the owner of a competitor of Ecolimpio and may stand to obtain an undue economic benefit from the submission. Because the reason for disallowing the submission is different from the reason for the first dismissal, the Secretariat again granted the Submitters a 30-day period to file a submission meeting the criteria of Article 14(1) of the NAAEC.
The CEC was created by the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico to address environmental matters from a regional perspective, to help to prevent possible conflicts between trade and the environment, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental laws.
Please visit the Citizen Submission on Enforcement Matters page for more information.
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