As president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as well as the group’s rapporteur for Mexico, James Cavallaro has been a driving force behind investigating what happened to the 43 Mexican college students who disappeared in September 2014. And he doesn’t pull punches in saying that the Mexican government failed to cooperate with the IACHR’s panel of international experts that was sent to investigate the case.

“The way this case has been handled by Mexican authorities, and the way they pressed and created a situation that made it impossible for the expert group to continue is galling. It’s galling in the face of the fact that you still have 43 parents who don’t know what happened to their sons,” said Cavallaro, who is also a professor of law at Stanford University and the founding director of the school’s International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic.

Cavallaro spoke with AQ about why the IACHR opted not to extend the expert group’s mandate last month, and what might come of a scheduled meeting with Mexican government officials this week; Mexico’s foreign secretary called the meeting a chance to “establish mechanisms to follow up on [the group’s] report” and “reaffirm” the government’s commitment to finding out what happened to the students.

…

Americas Quarterly: Mexico’s attorney general has called this “the most comprehensive criminal investigation in the history of law enforcement in Mexico.” What does that say about law enforcement in Mexico?

James Cavallaro: Unfortunately, given the results of the investigation, it’s quite a damning statement. It’s a damning statement because we don’t know what happened to the 43 students, we don’t know where they are, we don’t know who was responsible, we don’t know how they died. None of the most important questions have been answered. And if that’s what the most comprehensive investigation in the recent history of Mexico can produce, any rational observer should be extremely concerned about the state of criminal justice in Mexico.

Read More