Mexico’s Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that greatly restricts the country’s publicly-funded human rights institutions. The sweeping 7 to 4 ruling prevents Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and its state-level counterparts from challenging laws that violate or may violate human rights provisions in international treaties signed by the country. The court determined that governmental human rights institutions can only seek to annul laws that violate Mexico’s constitution.

Non-governmental groups can still work on human rights cases based on international law, but the exclusion of publicly-funded institutions from this type of work is significant.

The founding of government-funded human rights institutions in Mexico was a requirement of the North American Free Trade agreement – or NAFTA. Supporters of NAFTA often cited this “watchdog” requirement to argue that the trade agreement would improve the human rights situation in Mexico.