Mexican Law Review

From Securitization to Hegemony: Migration Governance in Latin America Under Trump’s Presidencies, with Mexico as a Control Laboratory

Elisa Ortega Velázquez — 2026-07-08

This article argues that US migration governance between 2017 and 2025 has progressed from coercive securitization to a hegemonic form of control. This shift refers to routinizing measures once justified as exceptional until they became regular features in legal, administrative, technological, and regional governance. This analysis traces this transformation through Trump’s first presidency, the Biden administration, and the beginning of Trump’s second presidency to show how deterrence was preserved, spread, and intensified through externalization, executive orders, digital infrastructures, and combining different types of enforcement. The article identifies four indicators of hegemonic migration governance: normalization, territorial expansion, the convergence of control mechanisms, and the downgrading of legal protections on deterrence. The article views Mexico as a migration control lab where the dynamics of militarization, bureaucracy, euphemized control measures, and organized abandonment are especially visible. The article concludes that protection rules formally persist, but deterrence-oriented governance increasingly reworks them.

Right of Access to Environmental Information on Fauna Protection in the Integrated Transportation System in the Aburrá Valley, Colombia

Jorge Eduardo Vásquez Santamaría — 2026-06-15

The Integrated Transportation System of the Aburrá Valley (SITVA, from its original name in Spanish) regularly receives reports of animal injuries, mutilations and deaths. The Legal Clinic (LC) at Universidad Católica Luis Amigó in Medellín set in motion a clinical exercise between March 2023 and April 2024, in which we posed to the authorities the following research questions: How is alleged ambiguity in the environmental institutions responsible for protecting fauna framed in Colombia’s legal system? and How do availability, up-to-datedness and access to environmental information affect the public’s perception of a situation for it to be considered an issue? We gathered data from six legal requests for information filed with the competent entities, to then analyze the availability, up-to-datedness and access to the environmental information on the protection of fauna.

Rebuilding Democracy and the Rule of Law in the United States After Trump: Reflections on Bruce Ackerman

Roberto Antonio Cabrera y Rodríguez — 2026-07-01

The article analyzes Bruce Ackerman’s lecture at the UNAM Law Faculty on rebuilding American democracy after Trump. It argues that Donald Trump’s presidency illustrates several dangers Ackerman identified in The Decline and Fall of the American Republic, including the growing concentration of presidential power, plebiscitary leadership, politics driven by emotional appeals, and the expansive use of emergency powers. To address these risks, Ackerman proposes reforms aimed at restoring checks and balances, including the creation of a Supreme Executive Tribunal and stronger Senate oversight of the White House. The article, however, argues that these reforms may be insufficient in a context of deep political polarization and democratic erosion. It suggests that institutional engineering alone cannot protect democracy. The defense of constitutional government also requires political pluralism, organized opposition, and a robust public sphere capable of limiting executive power.

Legal Analysis of the Proposed Mexican Neurorights Bill

Laura Y. Cabrera — 2026-07-15

This article provides a qualitative discourse analysis of the normative content of the legislative bill on neurorights introduced to the Mexican Senate in 2024. The article identifies recurring patterns of legal redundancy, institutional overlap, and conceptual ambiguity —particularly in relation to data protection, informed consent, and the regulation of neurotechnologies in health, education, labor, and security sectors. Although the bill aims to advance neurorights, especially those regarding mental privacy, mental integrity, psychological continuity, and cognitive liberty, its current structure reproduces existing legal frameworks without substantive innovation or operational clarity. Moreover, it proposes creating new regulatory bodies without sufficient institutional viability. The article argues that, in its present form, the bill risks becoming a symbolic rather than effective legal instrument. The analysis concludes with recommendations for legislative adjustments to the content to ensure coherence with the Mexican legal system and compliance with international human rights standards and emerging technologies.

Air Quality and Precautionary Measures: The Future of Environmental Litigation Under Mexico’s 2024 Judicial Reform

Bernardo Bolaños-Guerra — 2026-06-08

The juicio de amparo—often translated as constitutional relief—is one of Mexico’s most distinctive contributions to global constitutionalism, recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) for its capacity to provide the complainant with effective remedies. In recent history, the amparo enabled plaintiffs to obtain suspensiones (precautionary suspensions) of general laws and administrative measures. Environmental litigants relied on this tool to secure urgent protections, in exceptional cases achieving definitive results before the final ruling. At the same time, monopolies and corporate actors weaponized the amparo to block regulation and entrench privileges, constraining democratic decision-making. The 2024 reform limits the judiciary’s power to suspend general norms, curbing both the leverage of corporate actors and the capacity of civil society to prevent environmental harm. The challenge for the newly elected judiciary is to navigate this delicate balance: remaining responsive to democratic legitimacy while adhering strictly to constitutional principles, so that the amparo continues to serve as a safeguard for rights without becoming either a counter-majoritarian veto or an instrument of transient majorities.

Practical and Procedural Obstacles to a Functional Investor-State Dispute Settlement Mechanism in the Andean Community: Why Secondary Legislation Is not Enough?

Iván Vargas-Chaves — 2026-07-22

This article analyzes the legal and institutional barriers to establishing a functional Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism within the Court of Justice of the Andean Community. Using a comparative regional integration law methodology—with reference to the European Union, EFTA, and Mercosur—the article evaluates the structural requirements for this institutional reform. We found that successful operationalization is hindered by a “treaty tarrier” that requires a formal amendment to the constituent treaty, as secondary legislation is insufficient to expand jurisdiction. Furthermore, the analysis identifies critical needs for a specialized roster of independent arbitrators, robust transparency standards, and a standing appellate mechanism. It also highlights severe budgetary deficits and proposes judicial fees and trust funds to ensure financial sustainability. Finally, the article underscores the urgency of modernizing outdated substantive investment standards to align them with contemporary international law. It is concluded that a legitimate Andean arbitral forum requires a comprehensive, rather than superficial, normative and institutional overhaul to resolve contemporary disputes effectively.