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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2021
The search for the more than 90,000 disappeared persons in Mexico has highlighted the need to establish relations of collaboration with organized crime groups in order to access not only relevant information to clarify the fate and whereabouts of the missing, but also territories under the control of organized crime groups for carrying out field searches. Given the ineffectiveness of formal, prosecutorial approaches and the considerable success of grassroots, victim-led search strategies, this paper argues for the need for a broader humanitarian approach to the search for the missing that is victim-centred and complementary to accountability mechanisms. The article advances a proposal to formalize this approach through the International Committee of the Red Cross's (ICRC) involvement in search activities, given the ICRC's unique organizational nature, expertise and humanitarian mandate.
The author is grateful to Sandra Krähenmann and Ana Srovin Coralli for their vital guidance in drafting this article, and to the interviewees who provided invaluable insight on the realities of the search for disappeared persons. Email: issa.hernandezherrera@geneva-academy.ch.
1 Following the terminology used by Mexican legislation, a missing person is one whose absence cannot be linked to the commission of a crime, whereas a disappeared person is one whose absence is effectively presumed to be related with a crime. See Mexico, General Law on Forced Disappearance of Persons, 16 November 2017 (GLD), Art. 4(XV–XVI), available at: https://tinyurl.com/nd8hdjme (all internet references were accessed in October 2021).
2 The Mexican National Search Commission regularly updates the number of missing and disappeared persons. See: https://versionpublicarnpdno.segob.gob.mx/Dashboard/ContextoGeneral.
3 Ana Srovin Coralli, Coordination between the Search and Criminal Investigations concerning Disappeared Persons: Case Studies on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mexico, Swisspeace, Basel, 2021, pp. 40–41. Out of the total number of disappeared persons, an estimate of 70% correspond to the “War on Drugs” period. See Pablo Ferri, “México eleva la cifra de desaparecidos de la Guerra al narco a más de 60.000”, El País, 7 January 2020, available at: https://elpais.com/internacional/2020/01/07/mexico/1578423047_621821.html.
4 García, Jorge Mendoza, “Reconstruyendo la guerra sucia en México: Del olvido social a la memoria colectiva”, Revista Electrónica de Psicología Política, Vol. 5, No. 15, 2007, p. 10Google Scholar.
5 For a context overview, see Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, The Human Rights Situation in Mexico, 31 December 2015, pp. 63–96. For a particular example of State-perpetrated disappearances within the context of militarization of public security as part of the strategy against the “War on Drugs”, see Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Alvarado Espinoza et al. v. Mexico, Series C, No 370, Judgment, 28 November 2018, available at: www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_370_ing.pdf.
6 Guercke, Lene, “State Responsibility for a Failure to Prevent Violations of the Right to Life by Organised Criminal Groups: Disappearances in Mexico”, Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2021Google Scholar. While the followed definition of organized crime groups is that of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, it has been object to continuous controversy: see Hauck, Pierre and Peterke, Sven, “Organized Crime and Gang Violence in National and International Law”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 92, No. 878, 2010CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 “At the same time, there are instances where State forces clearly work for or with criminal organisations or manifestly fail to intervene in the commission of atrocious acts. Such collusion indicates that it is often not possible to distinguish between ‘crime’ and ‘State’ in the Mexican context.” L. Guercke, above note 6, p. 346.
8 The definition of “victims” followed by this paper includes both disappeared persons and their families, inasmuch as both the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, Article 24(1), and Mexican legislation recognize broad definitions of victimhood. See General Victims Law, Mexico, 2013, Arts 2, 4.
9 While enforced disappearances are understood as per the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, including the distinct characteristic of State involvement, disappearances perpetrated by individuals are defined as “the deprivation of liberty of a person with the aim of hiding the victim or his or her fate or whereabouts”, with no participation of the State whatsoever. GLD, above note 1, Arts 27, 34 (author's translation). For this paper, the term “disappearance” will be used to encompass both conducts, only differentiating between them when necessary.
10 Before the GLD, criminal investigations and searches for disappeared persons were tasked to the same institution, namely the prosecutors’ offices. After consultation with victims, civil society and State institutions, the GLD introduced the revolutionary change of partially separating the search and the criminal investigations into two different processes, therefore entrusting them to different institutions: the search is predominately dealt with by the Search Commissions, while the criminal investigation is retained by prosecutors’ offices. A. Srovin Coralli, above note 3, p. 50. However, it is important to note that Search Commissions are not the only authorities that search, as prosecutor's offices are also required and allowed to carry out certain acts of search according to the GLD. See, for example, GLD, above note 1, Art. 70(VII–VIII), 70(XVIII).
11 Both National and Local Search Commissions are governmental authorities exclusively tasked with the obligation of searching for disappeared and missing persons. GLD, above note 1, Art. 50.
12 For example, three years after the creation of the National Search Commission, a grand total of only 396 people –less than 1% of the total number of disappeared persons – have been found by this authority. Secretaría de Gobernación, Request for Access to Public Information No. S.I. 0401600014521, 23 August 2021 (on file with author).
13 Monique Crettol, Lina Milner, Anne-Marie La Rosa and Jill Stockwell, “Establishing Mechanisms to Clarify the Fate and Whereabouts of Missing Persons: A Proposed Humanitarian Approach”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 905, 2017, p. 611.
14 The term “collaboration” must not be understood as furthering a criminal activity, but as a legal term – found in several legislations, particularly across Latin America – that refers to cooperation between perpetrators (alleged or otherwise) of a crime, particularly organized crime members, and authorities, for truth and/or justice purposes. This term is sometimes referred to jointly as colaboración eficaz, “effective collaboration”, although it varies from country to country. For an overview of collaboration regimes in Mexico, Brazil and Peru, see Idheas, Estudio introductorio sobre la figura de beneficios por colaboración, Mexico, 20 July 2020, available at: https://tinyurl.com/9d3mjts.
15 M. Crettol et al., above note 13, p. 592.
16 Notably, this article will not deal with State-perpetrated disappearances, without prejudice to the need to take them into account and to explore alternatives to establish effective measures to facilitate information-sharing and other forms of collaboration by State-related perpetrators or witnesses.
17 In Mexico, this recognition is evidenced by the GLD's criminalization of “disappearances perpetrated by individuals”, where no State involvement is needed to commit said crime. This is an attempt to deal not only with the growing involvement of non-State parties in disappearances but also with the overall uncertainty regarding the identity of perpetrators vis-à-vis the frequent impossibility of distinguishing between “crime” and “State”. See L. Guercke, above note 6, pp. 346–347.
18 For an extensive analysis of this particular issue, see Citroni, Gabriella, “The First Attempts in Mexico and Central America to Address the Phenomenon of Missing and Disappeared Migrants”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 905, 2017CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 For an introductory overview of the benefits legal regime, see Idheas, above note 14.
20 GLD, above note 1, Art. 33(II–IV).
21 National Institute of Statistics and Geography, “National Survey on Victimization and Perception of Public Safety”, Press Release No. 636/20, Mexico, 10 December 2020, p. 12, available at: www.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/saladeprensa/boletines/2020/EstSegPub/envipe2020.pdf.
22 Karla I. Quintana Osuna, “Hacia una reforma integral de justicia”, Animal Político, 14 December 2020, available at: www.animalpolitico.com/blog-invitado/hacia-una-reforma-integral-de-justicia/.
23 The GLD recognizes certain conducts as crimes related to disappearances – such as hiding or destroying a victim's remains – even if the perpetrator did not take part in the abduction per se. GLD, above note 1, Art. 37.
24 Fiscalía General de la República, Request for Access to Public Information No. 00017000151521, 24 May 2020 (on file with author).
25 Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda, Insumos para beneficios por colaboración eficaz, 2020 (internal document, on file with author).
26 A. Srovin Coralli, above note 3, p. 69.
27 Mariana Cervantes, “Detenidos por caso Ayotzinapa colaboran a cambio de beneficios legales”, RadioFórmula, 20 July 2020, available at: www.radioformula.com.mx/noticias/20200710/vidulfo-rosales-testigos-caso-ayotzinapa-43-normalistas-ultimas-noticias-2020/.
28 Presidencia de la República, Decreto por el que se instruye establecer condiciones materiales, jurídicas y humanas efectivas, para fortalecer los derechos humanos de los familiares de las víctimas del caso Ayotzinapa a la verdad y al acceso a justicia, Mexico, 4 December 2018, Art. 6.
29 Presidencia de la República, “Presidente López Obrador presenta Plan de Implementación de la Ley General en Materia de Desaparición Forzada de Personas”, 4 February 2019, Point 11, available at: www.gob.mx/presidencia/prensa/presidente-lopez-obrador-presenta-plan-de-implementacion-de-la-ley-general-en-materia-de-desaparicion-forzada-de-personas.
30 Idheas, Relatoría del conversatorio “Beneficios por colaboración”, Mexico, 14 May 2019.
31 Schwartz-Marin, Ernesto and Cruz-Santiago, Arely, “Pure Corpses, Dangerous Citizens: Transgressing the Boundaries between Mourners and Experts in the Search for the Disappeared in Mexico”, Social Research: An International Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2, 2016, p. 486Google Scholar.
32 Ferrándiz, Francisco, “Exhuming the Defeated: Civil War Mass Graves in 21st-Century Spain”, Journal of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2013Google Scholar.
33 Schwartz-Martin, Ernesto and Cruz-Santiago, Arely, “Forensic Civism: Articulating Science, DNA and Kinship in Contemporary Mexico and Colombia”, Human Remains and Violence, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2016, pp. 58–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Due to the general context of violence alongside limited forensic capacities in Mexico, there are approximately 50,000 human remains pending forensic identification. Therefore, families of disappeared persons and victims’ groups advocated for the creation of an Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism, accepted by the Mexican federal government in early 2020. See Movimiento por Nuestros Desaparecidos México, “MNDM: Más de 50,000 personas fallecidas sin identificar en los servicios forenses del país”, 10 December 2020, available at: https://movndmx.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Comunicado-MNDM-10-diciembre-2020.pdf; Secretaría de Gobernación, Acuerdo SNBP/001/2019 por el que se aprueba la creación del Mecanismo Extraordinario de Identificación Forense, Mexico, 19 March 2020.
35 E. Schwartz-Martin and A. Cruz-Santiago, above note 33, p. 59.
36 Ibid., p. 59.
37 Idheas, above note 30, p. 13 (author's translation).
38 E. Schwartz-Martin and A. Cruz-Santiago, above note 33, p. 67.
39 Anonymous interview with relative of disappeared persons, Mexico, March 2021 (on file with author).
40 Ibid.
41 Analy Nuño, “Buscaban a un familiar desaparecido; fueron asesinados”, A Dónde Van los Desaparecidos, 4 August 2020, available at: https://adondevanlosdesaparecidos.org/2021/08/04/buscaban-a-un-familiar-desaparecido-fueron-asesinados/.
42 Álvaro Martos and Elena Jaloma Cruz, “Desenterrando el dolor propio: Las Brigadas Nacionales de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas en México”, in Javier Yankelevich (ed.), Desde y frente al Estado: Pensar, atender y resistir la desaparición de personas en México, Centro de Estudios Constitucionales de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, Mexico, 2017, pp. 103–114.
43 Brigada Solidaria NYC, “Info Sessions: National Search Brigade, Part Two”, 23 April 2021, available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUm5j9TFVG4&t=5s&ab_channel=BrigadaSolidariaNYC.
44 Brigada Solidaria NYC, “Mother's Day Call”, 5 May 2021, available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0jhJ2fQL1A&ab_channel=BrigadaSolidariaNYC.
45 Anonymous interview with Brigade organizer 1, Mexico, May 2021 (on file with author).
46 Anonymous interview with Brigade organizer 2, Mexico, March 2021 (on file with author).
47 Rubén Martín, “Colinas de Santa Fe: Barbarie y resistencia en México”, Sin Embargo, 18 August 2019, available at: www.sinembargo.mx/18-08-2019/3630804.
48 Alberto Nájar, “México: El hombre que disolvió en ácido a 300 personas”, BBC News, 22 August 2014, available at: www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/08/140821_mexico_desaparecidos_pozolero_an.
49 Idheas, Verdad a voces: La pesadilla nayarita continúa, Mexico, 10 December 2020, p. 10 (author's translation), available at: www.idheas.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Gaceta_DIGITAL.pdf.
50 Ibid., p. 11.
51 Universidad Iberoamericana, Manual de acciones frente a la desaparición y la desaparición forzada: Orientaciones para las familias mexicanas de personas desaparecidas, Mexico, 2019, pp. 18, 22, 94.
52 See, for example, the case of Pablo Miramontes Vargas, one of twelve family-searchers murdered in connection with their search endeavours. Miramontes Vargas was searching for his disappeared brother, César Alejandro. A. Nuño, above note 41.
53 The US government maintains that 30–35% of Mexican territory consists of ungoverned areas. US Department of Defense, “USNORTHCOM-USSOUTHCOM Joint Press Briefing Transcript”, 16 March 2021, available at: www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2539561/usnorthcom-ussouthcom-joint-press-briefing/.
54 Anonymous interview with Brigade organizer 1, above note 45.
55 Lassée, Isabelle, “The Sri Lankan Office on Missing Persons: Truth and Justice in Tandem?”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 905, 2017, p. 625CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56 Schabas, William A., “Conjoined Twins of Transitional Justice? The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court”, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2004, p. 303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
57 Sabina A. Stein, “Competing Political Science Perspectives on the Role of Religion in Conflict”, Politorbis, No. 52-2, 2011, p. 24.
58 Ibid., p. 25.
59 It has been widely recognized that perpetrators can be, and not uncommonly are, victims too. See, for example, Primo Levi, “The Grey Zone”, in P. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, Abacus, London, 2013.
60 M. Crettol et al., above note 13, pp. 592, 602–603.
61 Ibid., pp. 612–613.
62 Wijenayake, Vishakha, “The Office on Missing Persons in Sri Lanka: The Importance of a Primarily Humanitarian Mandate”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 950, 2017, p. 650CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 Ibid., pp. 659–660.
64 The Homologated Search Protocol is a policy by the National Search Commission that establishes search procedures and processes, best practices and standards, and terms of coordination with prosecutorial authorities.
65 GLD, above note 1, Art. 5(IV); Homologated Search Protocol, Mexico, 2020, para. 35.
66 See, for example, the historically different understandings of what a humanitarian approach is and its consequences on forensic action between the ICRC and Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. Rosenblatt, Adam, “The Danger of a Single Story about Forensic Humanitarianism”, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, No. 61, 2018, p. 76Google ScholarPubMed.
67 A. Srovin Coralli, above note 3, pp. 50–51.
68 National Code of Criminal Procedures, Mexico, 2014, Art. 222.
69 GLD, above note 1, Art. 53 (XX–XXIII), 53(XL); Homologated Search Protocol, above note 65, paras 292–296.
70 For example, when a search warrant to enter a property is necessary, when clandestine graves are being processed, for exhumation procedures, and for all forensic-related operations. A. Srovin Coralli, above note 3, p. 67.
71 Anonymous interview with an employee of an international organization, Mexico, March 2021 (on file with author).
72 “Activistas piden analizar beneficios de colaboración para delincuentes”, La Jornada, 19 July 2020, available at: www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2020/07/19/activistas-piden-analizar-beneficios-por-colaboracion-a-delincuentes-182.html.
73 V. Wijenayake, above note 62, p. 646.
74 Committee on Enforced Disappearances, Guiding Principles for the Search for Disappeared Persons, UN Doc. CED/C/7, 8 May 2019, Principle 13; Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, UN Doc. A/HRC/36/50, 21 August 2017, para. 82.
75 ICRC, “Adoption of the Declaration and Agenda for Humanitarian Action”, Geneva, 2003, available at: www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/resolution/28-international-conference-resolution-1-2003.htm.
76 ICRC, “Q&A: The ICRC's Engagement on the Missing and Their Families”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 905, 2017, p. 539
77 Ibid., p. 540.
78 Ibid., p. 544.
79 The case of Mexico is controversial regarding conflict classification. While some have advocated for the situation in Mexico to be recognized as a NIAC, the Mexican government and the ICRC itself have not classified it as such. For arguments in favour, see, for example, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, “Non-International Armed Conflicts in Mexico”, RULAC, available at: www.rulac.org/browse/conflicts/non-international-armed-conflict-in-mexico. For arguments against, see, for example, Diego Ruiz Gayol, “Applying International Humanitarian Law to Apples and Oranges. The Situation of Violence in Mexico: A Non-International Armed Conflict?”, July 2020 (unpublished, on file with author).
80 The areas of work include forensics, training, implementation of the GLD, and psychosocial support to victims. ICRC, Annual Report 2020: Mexico, 22 April 2020, p. 19.
81 The categorization of a situation as an OSV, below the threshold of armed conflict, can trigger the ICRC's right of humanitarian initiative, grounded in Article 5(3) of the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. See ICRC, “The International Committee of the Red Cross's Role in Situations of Violence Below the Threshold of Armed Conflict: Policy Document”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 96, No. 893, 2014, pp. 282–287Google Scholar.
82 Ibid., p. 302.
83 Ibid., pp. 290–296.
84 Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kristian Hoelscher, “The Reframing of the War on Drugs as a ‘Humanitarian Crisis’: Costs, Benefits, and Consequences”, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 44, No. 4, 2017, p. 171.
85 Ibid., pp. 290–291.
86 ICRC, above note 81, p. 291.
87 International Commission of Jurists, “Desaparición forzada y ejecución extrajudicial: Los derechos de los familiares”, in Guía para Profesionales, No. 10, Geneva, 2015, p. 14.
88 ICRC, above note 76, p. 540.
89 V. Wijenayake, above note 62, p. 652.
90 ICRC, “The ICRC's Privilege of Non-Disclosure of Confidential Information”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 97, No. 897–898, 2016, p. 442Google Scholar.
91 Ibid., p. 434.
92 Ibid., pp. 435–436.
93 As recognized by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR): see ICTR, Prosecutor v. Muvunyi, Case No. ICTR-2000-55, Reasons for the Chamber's Decision on the Accused's Motion to Exclude Witness TQ, 15 July 2005, para. 16.
94 For an analysis of the converging of the humanitarian and criminal approaches in the context of Sri Lanka, see I. Lassée, above note 55, pp. 626–629.
95 Jelena Pejic, Irénée Herbet and Tilman Rodenhäuser, “ICRC Engagement with Non-State Armed Groups: Why and How”, Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, 4 March 2021, available at: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2021/03/04/icrc-engagement-non-state-armed-groups/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&linkId=100000035636190.
96 Bradley, Miriam, “From Armed Conflict to Urban Violence: Transformations in the International Committee of the Red Cross, International Humanitarianism and the Laws of War”, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 26, No. 4, 2020, p. 1062CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ICRC, Urban Violence and the ICRC's Humanitarian Response, Geneva, 2016.
97 K. Bergtora Sandvik and K. Hoelscher, above note 84, pp. 175–176.
98 M. Bradley, above note 96, pp. 1076–1078.
99 Ibid., p. 1074.
100 See, for example, the interdisciplinary questions of identity of victims and perpetrators, including “grey zones”, in Undine Kayser-Whande and Stephanie Schell-Faucon, “Transitional Justice and Conflict Transformation in Conversation”, Politorbis, No. 50-3, 2010, pp. 102–104.