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At the state level, absent or inadequate legislation undercuts authorities’ capacity to
effectively prosecute those responsible for the crime, determine the fate of victims, and
provide a strong deterrent for such crimes. Seventeen of Mexico’s 32 federal entities have
not incorporated the crime of enforced disappearances as an offense in their criminal
codes. In these states, according to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances:
“[e]nforced disappearances are treated like abuse of authority, unlawful aggravated
deprivation of liberty, abuse of public authority, offence against justice, unlawful
detention, abduction or a combination of these offences. However, either such offences do
not have the necessary scope to encompass enforced disappearances or the severity of
the penalty is inappropriate.” 446
Meanwhile, the 15 states that do include enforced disappearances as a criminal offence in
their laws do not use the same definition, or the same definition as the federal law, and
most of the state laws are inconsistent with international human rights standards. For
example, several state laws on enforced disappearance do not specify how statutes of
limitations should apply to the crime, if at all. Because an enforced disappearance is
continuous so long as the fate of the victim remains unknown, the clock on the statute of
limitations cannot commence unless and until the fate of the victim is resolved. And in the
case that a statute of limitations does commence at that stage, the time period must be of
a length and duration proportionate to the extreme seriousness of the offence. This is the
position taken by the International Convention, the Inter-American Convention, and
Mexico’s Supreme Court in a 2004 decision. 447 Many more states fail to provide in law that
an enforced disappearance also occurs when non-state actors carry out the offence, with
the indirect support, authorization, or acquiescence of state actors. In other instances the
UN Working Group had admonished that “[p]enalties vary according to the jurisdiction,
and are not necessarily proportionate to the seriousness of the offence when compared
with that of other offences such as abduction.” 448
446 UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Mission to Mexico, Addendum, Report of the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, A/HRC/19/58/Add.2, December 20, 2011,
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=119 (accessed August 8, 2012), para. 13.
447 Mexican Supreme Court, Ninth Period (Novena Época), Jurisprudence, Semanario Judicial de la Federación y su Gaceta XX,
Septiembre de 2004.
448 UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Mission to Mexico, Addendum, Report of the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, A/HRC/19/58/Add.2, December 20, 2011,
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=119 (accessed August 8, 2012), para. 13.
MEXICO’S DISAPPEARED 132