Mexican Army soldiers destroy confiscated weapons, in a file photo. Portal
The Mexican government is not backing down in its fight against the US defense industry. Lawyers representing Mexican authorities and the arms manufacturers presented their arguments Monday before an appeals court that will decide whether to reopen the lawsuit in US courts or uphold a Massachusetts judge’s ruling that dismissed it last September. “We are optimistic that we will reach a positive decision,” Alejandro Celorio, legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference at the end of the hearing. “The simple fact that the community in Mexico, the United States and the world is paying more attention to these legal arguments is already a victory in itself,” said the diplomat, who expects the decision to be made in a period of six to eight months, although there is no defined deadline for the matter to be resolved.
The main obstacle to the Mexican cause is the Law for the Protection of the Legal Trade in Arms (PLAA), a law introduced during the George W. Bush administration that protects the defense industry from any lawsuits arising from the misuse of their products. That legal protection, and the immunity it affords to gun manufacturers, was the argument used to dismiss the case at first instance in a Massachusetts court. “While this court has great sympathy for Mexicans and absolutely no sympathy for those who sell guns to Mexico’s criminal organizations, it is bound by the law,” Judge Dennis Saylor said in his ruling last year.
Mexican authorities appealed weeks after the verdict, but only now have both parties been able to present their oral arguments before three judges at the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts. Since then, it was assumed that the court proceedings would take some time. “Ever since the Mexican government filed the lawsuit, we knew whoever lost in the first instance would appeal,” Celorio said. Deciding where to start litigation and where to appeal last year’s verdict was part of the Latin American country’s legal strategy. The court has a majority of judges appointed by Democratic Party presidents who may be more sympathetic to the Mexican cause.
Mexico’s lawyers used three arguments to abolish the defense industry’s legal shield. They first pointed out that the PLCAA does not apply to damages committed outside US territory. Second, they explained that there is legal precedent where it has been possible to sit on the defendant’s bench in trials following shootings and massacres in the United States. Finally, they presented a more technical argument dealing with the extraterritorial application of one country’s law in another and the way it conflicts with each state’s sovereignty. The Mexican government’s legal team reiterates that the law does not specifically state that it can be applied outside of the United States.
“Weapons are not created in Mexico by spontaneous manufacture, but by the irresponsibility of the companies that allow criminals in the US access to them,” Celorio said. From this point on, the judges examine the written and oral arguments of both parties. The best-case scenario for the Mexican case would be for the Massachusetts court to be ordered to reopen the case and enter the discovery phase. The worst thing is that the decision not to continue the case is confirmed again.
In any case, the Mexican authorities announced that they will exhaust all possible instances and are ready to go all the way to the Supreme Court. “This is not a complaint against the United States Government, the American people, or any right under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Celorio said. “This is a lawsuit in which the Mexican government is demanding responsible behavior from defense companies,” he said.
The legal dispute has enabled the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to position the issue at the bilateral negotiating table with its neighbor and contain Washington’s claims on its security policy. It also became one of the priorities of former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who left office last June to seek Morena’s presidential candidacy in the 2024 election. The issue has also surfaced in international forums such as the United Nations. The lawsuit was originally directed against nine arms manufacturing companies and two arms dealers. The argument is that corporate negligence has increased the cartels’ firepower and resulted in thousands of violent deaths in Mexico. The manufacturers denied the allegations and refused to accept responsibility for misuse of their products.
Mexico has two separate cases attacking the United States’ illicit arms trade from separate fronts. The first targets gun manufacturers and dealers, the first link in the arms supply chain to organized crime in Massachusetts. It is the one being appealed against. In this civil lawsuit, another lawsuit against the arms dealers, the last link in this chain, was filed in Arizona federal court and is still pending. It is to be expected that it will be a long time before the outcome of the legal dispute is known.
Subscribe here Subscribe to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the important information about current events in this country