Pages from the Mexico Blog: Trade, HIV and Kidnapping

The last few weeks have shown some interesting stories coming from Mike Coe and Alejandro Quiroz Flores of FPA's Mexico Blog. I encourage those interested in not only South America, but Mexico as well to read of few of their posts regarding Mexico in the last few weeks.

Alejandro took to task the events unfolding in the Mexican Senate and Congress. In an earlier posting in the Latin America blog we focused on the activities of the government in hiring private investigators to watch senate members, and the response in the Senate when the story became public. For the actions of the government in quelling internal political pressures, please read Alejandro's posting here. Alejandro in his most recent post focuses on how kidnapping, one of the most active criminal movements in Mexico, is now being considered to carry a penalty of life imprisonment for anyone participating in the activity. The consideration of such a tough penalty came from the kidnapping and death of the son of one of Mexico's most important business leaders. Mexico was traditionally known for smaller kidnappings, often having the victim beaten and taken to various bank machines to withdraw cash. On occasion, larger cases that often characterized kidnappings in Colombia and Brazil and involved wealthier people and millions of dollars also became more common in Mexican society. With the recent drug war taking hold and more and more kidnappings against Mexico's elite with tragic outcomes, an official response may be too late to affect and real change in Mexico's kidnapping industry. Please read Alejandro's posting here.

Mike Coe of the Mexico blog also has taken to addressing some interesting topics. In a few postings, Mike set to address the international AIDS Conference which took place in Mexico City last week. To highlight the conference, which focuses on the HIV epidemic in the developing world, Mike set two posts on HIV in Tijuana Mexico which is an often unspoken about issue in many communities in Mexico. Posts can be read here and here.

Mike Coe also addressed some economic issues in the last few weeks. In one posting, Mike discusses the desire for oil reform/privatisation in Mexico City, which overwhelmingly rejects any proposals to nationalise Mexico's oil industry and principal source of national income. In another posting, Mike discusses the effect on Mexico after the failure of the Doha Round on WTO talks. With countries like India rejecting the agreement due to fears of local agricultural and local industries in the developing world being dominated by those in the developed world via the agreement, countries like Mexico who are considered semi-developed must now rest on the merits of their trade agreements to fulfill their goals of open trade with other nations. With Mexico signing the most trade agreements worldwide, eventually a continuation of the policy might allow Mexico to benefit from free trade, albeit with many more treaties and a lot more paperwork. While Doha was a far reaching goal for the neo-liberal economic model, the success of India and China from such policies might be a role model for Mexican economists, but with their new power it also ironically has capped the progression of an international agreement on trade for Mexico and everyone else. In any case, it is a good time to be a Mexican trade lawyer!

Thanks again to the Mexico Blog. Hasta Luego Amigos..