Mexico’s Supreme Court has issued another blow to government transparency when it comes to human rights.  The latest ruling comes less than one week after the high court limited the legal scope of the country’s publicly-funded human rights commissions.

In a 7 to 4 vote, the Supreme Court upheld a recently reformed internal policy of the Attorney General’s office that limits the National Human Rights Commission’s access to case files. The wording of the new policy allows the Mexican equivalent of the Justice Department to deny human rights investigators access to information that could “put ongoing investigations or the security of persons at risk”. The Attorney General’s Office itself will determine which case files meet the criteria for denial.

The National Human Rights Commission argued the policy restricting their oversight of the federal law enforcement agency was unconstitutional.  The Commission published a report earlier this month in which the Attorney General’s Office ranked second only to the Armed Forces in citizen complaints of human rights abuses.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling is the second in as many weeks to restrict the scope of the federally-funded human rights ombudsman’s office. Last week, the high court ruled that the National Human Rights Commission can only cite the Constitution – and not international law – in legal challenges.

(From the March 10, 2010 broadcast of Free Speech Radio News)

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.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is holding a 4-day conference in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, with a focus on agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries. The conference has drawn criticism from farmers and environmental groups for its favorable stance towards genetically-modified crops.

The four companies that hold the patents on biotech seeds tout the technology as a solution to world hunger.

Pat Mooney, Executive Director of the non-profit ETC group, was on the conference’s international steering committee until he resigned in protest a few days ago over what he says is a bias in the conference documentation and a lack of space for opposing viewpoints.

Mooney said he’s particularly concerned about the position of the Mexican government in light of a recent announcement of 24 field trial of genetically-modified corn.  “The fear here” said Mooney “is that Mexico’s going to walk away from this conference saying ‘well, we brought the international community to Mexico, to the center of diversity for corn and everyone thought that biotech was lovely’. And so they can walk away saying that now they’ve got the approval of the United Nations for what they’re doing.”

Groups critical of the biotech industry’s role in agriculture have gathered in Guadalajara to hold parallel events. Participation in the FAO conference itself is by invitation only.