By Lene Guercke

This Open Access book explores an issue that has received little attention in human rights research: organised criminal groups (OCGs) as perpetrators of human rights violations, especially disappearances. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining doctrinal legal research with a qualitative study on present-day disappearances in Mexico. Disappearances are a complex human rights violation that impacts not only the disappeared person but also their relatives, who are left in a limbo of uncertainty about their loved one’s fate. Originally part of state-led repression, today disappearances occur in varied contexts, often involving OCGs and other non-state actors. However, disappearances committed by non-state actors are not human rights violations under International Human Rights Law (IHRL), thereby potentially leaving a gap in the legal protection of victims. The book first analyses state obligations and case law involving state responsibility for human rights violations committed by non-state actors and applies the analysis to OCGs. This ‘internal’ legal perspective is complemented by an ‘external’ study based on interviews with human rights practitioners working on disappearances in Mexico, which often involve OCGs. The qualitative study offers a unique perspective on human rights protection ‘in reality’.

The book adds to scholarship on non-state actors and disappearances, and to incipient international legal scholarship on the issue of organised crime and international law. Moreover, the study on Mexico provides a richer understanding of challenges faced by practitioners ‘on the ground’ where OCGs commit human rights violations alongside, or in collusion with, state forces and against the backdrop of an overall failure of the state. The book may be of interest to a diverse audience, including legal scholars and practitioners, human rights scholars in fields such as political science, international relations, or socio-legal studies, as well as funders supporting the work of NGOs in Mexico and similar contexts, and NGOs themselves.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2025, 339p.

By The International Crisis Group

Criminal groups in Mexico and the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) have been quick to absorb the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and seize new opportunities provided by lockdowns, distracted states and immiserated citizens. At first, trade disruptions and movement restrictions forced some criminal outfits to slow illicit activities. But the lull has not lasted. Exchange of illicit goods already appears to be swinging back to normal, while extortion rackets are resurging. As the region’s recent history shows, quick fixes to rein in organised crime and official corruption are very likely to be counterproductive. Instead, governments should concentrate their limited resources to aid the most violent regions and vulnerable people, ideally through regional programs to curb impunity and create alternatives to criminal conduct. After months of lockdowns of varying severity, with disease transmission still uncontrolled and poised to spike again, the threat of rising crime across the region is manifest. Mexico has been afflicted for years by transnational criminal organisations that feed off a lack of economic opportunity and corruption in the state and security forces. The new force in the underworld, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, has bared its teeth during the pandemic in fights for control of illicit markets such as drug trafficking and “taxing” legal commodities. It has also displayed its paramilitary might in the media. Myriad criminal groups have claimed to be lifelines for local people, largely in bids to widen their support base. Across the north of Central…..

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  America, street gangs that have lorded it over their economically struggling strongholds for years have also found ways to take advantage of the pandemic. After the outbreak, they advertised themselves as champions of communities under lockdown, handing out food baskets and forgiving protection payments. Due to COVID-19 movement restrictions, violence fell briefly in Honduras and Guatemala. But it is now back to or above pre-pandemic levels, while extortion rackets in both countries appear set to intensify. El Salvador is an outlier in that murder rates have stayed close to historical lows for reasons that remain disputed. The government says its security plan has kept violent gangs at bay, while Crisis Group has suggested that gang and government leaders may have struck an informal agreement to scale back violence. But, if such a pact exists, neither side has acknowledged it in public, and sudden spates of killings underline that gangs’ commitment to peace is far from robust. Behind concerns about deteriorating security in Mexico and northern Central America is the realisation that the pandemic (and counter-measures) will worsen the economic and institutional ills underlying the crime wave. The incidence of COVID-19 varies from country to country, but it is hard to imagine that any will avoid a negative impact on livelihoods, public services and the popular mood. Mexico ranks fourth worldwide with its officially reported death toll of over 90,000 – which the government admits is an undercount – while rates of infection in northern Central America stand around the Latin American average. Nonetheless, all four countries are now facing one of the most severe economic contractions in decades, made worse in Central America by the recent devastation left by Hurricane ETA. Expected falls in 2020 GDP, reaching close to 10 per cent in Mexico and El Salvador and causing unemployment to soar across the region, are set to reverse advances in reducing inequality and poverty, weaken public services in poor areas, intensify criminal rivalries and sharpen officials’ motives for consorting with illicit business. 

Brussels:  International Crisis Group, 2020. 37p.

By Larrea-Schiavon, Silvana, Lina López-Lalinde, Isabel Vieitez Martínez, Ricardo Regules, Juan Pablo Gutiérrez, René Nevárez, Cristina Mac Gregor, Pablo López, Nicole Haberland, and Thoai Ngô

This report presents findings from the baseline survey of the Violence Outcomes in COVID-19 Era Study (VOCES-19). The study, conducted by Population Council Mexico in collaboration with the National Institute of Youth and the National Center for Gender Equity and Reproductive Health aims to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying mitigation measures on the experience and perception of violence among 15–24-year-olds living in Mexico, as well as its effects on other social, economic, and health, related outcomes. The primary objectives for this first survey round were to gather baseline information on several outcomes of interest, assess differential effects by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and establish a cohort of adolescents and young adults to measure the impact of the pandemic on young people in Mexico over time.

Mexico: Population Council, 2021. 153p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown

Wildlife trafficking from Mexico to China receives little international attention, but it is growing, compounding the threats to Mexican biodiversity posed by preexisting poaching for other markets, including the United States. Since Mexican criminal groups often control extensive territories in Mexico which become no-go-zones for government officials and environmental defenders, visibility into the extent of poaching, illegal logging, and wildlife trafficking in Mexico is limited. It is likely, however, that the extent of poaching and trafficking, including to China, is larger than commonly understood.

Preventing far greater damage to Mexico’s biodiversity from illegal harvesting and poaching and wildlife and timber trafficking requires urgent attention in Mexico with far more dedicated resources, as well as meaningful international cooperation, to identify and dismantle smuggling networks and retail markets.

Washington, DC: Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution, 2022. 50p.

By Victoria Dittmar and Parker Asmann

The expansion of illegal cattle ranching is threatening nature reserves in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. This activity provokes staggering levels of deforestation, irreversible environmental degradation and violence towards Indigenous communities, all while fueling a criminal market that generates millions of dollars in proceeds. A portion of these cattle are smuggled into Mexico, where they either feed the domestic demand for meat or are mixed with beef exports sent to the United States and other countries. This report, produced by InSight Crime, follows the cattle trafficking chain from Central America to Mexico and provides an overview of how this illicit market works. It estimates the size and scope of the industry, highlights illegal ranching hotspots and smuggling routes, identifies the main actors involved in the value chain, analyzes where and how this activity overlaps with other criminal economies, and offers recommendations for governments to tackle the issue. The findings are based on a 14-month investigation that included desktop research, telephone and in-person interviews, and fieldwork in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, and Chiapas, the Río Plátano Reserve in Honduras and the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. Our sources include international, national and local authorities, cattle ranchers and cattle union leaders, former contraband cattle buyers, veterinarians, Indigenous leaders, park rangers, residents of the nature reserves, environmental activists and academic experts. Most of them asked to remain anonymous for their protection. We also reviewed official government data, studies conducted by academics nd non-governmental organizations, and press reports.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 68p.

By Teagan McGinnis, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira and David Shirk

Justice in Mexico has released its latest working paper titled Analyzing the Problem of Femicide in Mexico by Teagan McGinnis, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira, and David Shirk. This study examines the patterns of violence against women in Mexico, with special attention to the problem of femicide. While national homicide data show that the proportion of female homicide victims in Mexico has stayed largely the same for decades, the authors demonstrate that the elevated rate of homicides throughout the country has contributed to a large increase in the total number of female homicide victims. Because many homicides targeting women have distinctive characteristics—such as sexual violence, intimate partners, or other factors attributable to the woman’s gender—they have been legally codified as “femicides,” murders targeting women due to their gender.

The authors explore the question of why both the number and proportion of femicides has increased dramatically since national level data became available in 2015. Since prosecutors play a key role in determining whether a crime will be classified as either a homicide or femicide, the authors specifically evaluate the effects of state level prosecutorial capacity on the reporting of such crimes. The authors compiled an original dataset of state prosecutorial budgets and levels of homicidal violence (by gender and by state) and used both means testing and linear regression models to assess differences between states with special prosecutors and those without, while controlling for the level of homicidal violence across states. In terms of qualitative methods, the authors also compiled federal and state laws to examine differences in criminal and administrative laws and conducted interviews with state prosecutors and security experts.

The authors find statistically significant evidence that states that have special prosecutors for the investigation of femicides are substantially more likely to classify female homicides as femicides. Indeed, appointing a special prosecutor for gender-related crimes increases the investigation of femicide cases by 50% on average, even controlling for levels of homicidal violence in those states. These findings illustrate the impact of recent prosecutorial reforms in Mexico and offer useful insights for policy makers and activists working to combat violence against women in Mexico. Informed by the novel findings in this study, the authors recommend that Mexican states lacking special prosecutorial offices for the investigation and prosecution of femicides should create such units, and that all states should provide more resources and prosecutorial tools for the investigation and prosecution of gender-motivated crimes.

Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 2022. 33p.