| Montreal, 19/10/2000 – The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC) today requested a response from Mexico regarding claims that it has failed to enforce certain of its environmental laws effectively, allegedly resulting in harmful effects from pollutants emanating from the Molymex plant in the state of Sonora, Mexico.
In its submission, Academia Sonorense de Derechos Humanos and Domingo Gutiérrez Mendívil assert a failure by Mexico to effectively enforce provisions of its General Environmental Law (LGEEPA) and an Official Mexican Standard for Environmental Health, with respect to the Molymex plant. The plant produces molybdenum trioxide through a roasting process, which allegedly affects the town of Cumpas, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.
Normally, a Party named in such submissions has 30 days in which to provide its response to the allegations.
Two earlier submissions on this matter, one by Rosa María Escalante, received by NACEC on 27 January 2000 (Molymex I), and the second, filed by the Academia Sonorense de Derechos Humanos and Domingo Gutiérrez on 6 April 2000 (Molymex II), were dismissed by NACEC on 25 April 2000 and 13 July 2000, respectively, because neither met the submission criteria set forth in Article 14(1) of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The revised Molymex II submission, filed with NACEC on 31 July 2000, however, has been determined by NACEC to meet those criteria and contains several allegations which merit a response from the Party (Mexico).
Of the five principal allegations made in the revised Molymex II submission, those that are viewed by NACEC to merit a response concern environmental impact requirements, air emission limits and the application of environmental protection criteria in land-use planning. Two other allegations have been determined not to merit such a response, because the submission fails to establish links between the facts invoked and the provisions of environmental law allegedly not being enforced with respect to those facts.
Under Article 14 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), NACEC may consider a submission from any person or nongovernmental organization asserting that a Party to NAAEC is failing to enforce its environmental law effectively. With Council approval, this can launch a process that leads to further investigation of the matter and the publication of findings in a factual record, as provided under NAAEC Article 15.
NACEC was established under NAAEC to address environmental issues in North America from a continental perspective, with a particular focus on the opportunities and challenges that arise in the context of liberalized trade. The NACEC Council is composed of the environment ministers, or the equivalent, of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
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