| Montreal, 9/01/2006 – The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) today released a factual record on Mexico's alleged failure to effectively enforce its environmental law by denying access to environmental justice to indigenous peoples of the Sierra Tarahumara, in the state of Chihuahua.
The SEM-00-006 (Tarahumara) submission was filed with the CEC Secretariat on 9 June 2000, by the Comisión de Solidaridad y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos A.C. On 22 April 2003, in Council Resolution 03-04, the CEC Council voted unanimously to instruct the CEC Secretariat to prepare a factual record with respect to the submission.
A factual record provides information regarding asserted failures to effectively enforce environmental law in North America that may assist submitters, the Parties to the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and other interested members of the public in taking any action they deem appropriate in regard to the matters addressed.
The Tarahumara factual record provides information relevant to a consideration of whether Mexico is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law as regards the processing of 28 citizen complaints filed with federal authorities by indigenous communities from the Sierra Tarahumara mountains in western Chihuahua state between 1998 and 2000 alleging illegal logging and other natural resource extraction activities, and the alleged failure by federal authorities to pursue criminal sanctions in regard to those activities.
In processing the citizen complaints covered by the factual record, authorities did not issue decisions on the admissibility of the complaints within the time period prescribed by law, and files were closed after the time period prescribed by law. For the 16 cases in which the citizen complaint led to authorities ordering the adoption of corrective measures and/or payment of fines, Mexico did not provide the Secretariat with requested information regarding whether fines were paid and whether enforcement action was taken when corrective measures were not carried out. For cases in which authorities determined that facts giving rise to the complaint merited pursuing criminal sanctions, Mexico did not provide the Secretariat with requested information regarding the existence or outcome of such proceedings. Regarding those cases where authorities decided that the facts did not establish the existence of an environmental crime, neither complainants nor the Secretariat obtained an explanation from Mexico of the basis for the authorities' decision. Relations between indigenous communities and government authorities, as well as federal-state cooperation and interagency cooperation, were identified by government authorities and complainants as challenges to the effective enforcement of environmental law in the cases covered by the factual record. Indigenous communities are concerned about the independence of federal environmental enforcement staff, and federal authorities acknowledge that the number of inspectors is too low and their salaries are not in line with those in the rest of the federal civil service. The factual record provides relevant information concerning these challenges.
In developing the factual record, the Secretariat considered publicly available information, information provided by the Parties to the NAAEC and others, and technical information developed by the Secretariat through independent experts.
On 26 July 2005, the Secretariat submitted the final factual record to the Council. On 21 December 2005, in Council Resolution 05-09, the Council voted unanimously to instruct the Secretariat to make public the factual record.
The CEC was established under the NAAEC to address environmental issues in North America from a continental perspective, with a particular focus on those arising in the context of liberalized trade. The Council, the organization's governing body, is composed of the top environment officials of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The citizen submissions mechanism of the CEC enables the public to play a whistle-blower role on matters of environmental law enforcement. Under Article 14 of the NAAEC, any person or nongovernmental organization may submit a claim alleging that a NAFTA partner has failed to effectively enforce its environmental law.
For more information, please visit the CEC's Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters page. | 
