Last week I wrote an article about Mexico’s new education reform and how wrong it is. I briefly mentioned that there have even been protests against it, but felt I needed to go more in depth about the interactions that Mexico is currently having with its citizens.
Because every country is independent of creating and implementing policies within its territory, that means there is no such thing as a "world government" and the sole concept of it is just irrational. But then how can countries not become selfish and pursue only their leader’s interests if governments don’t have to answer to anyone? Well for one thing, if they want to keep having trade and other kids or relationships with other countries then they’ll behave well. And they also have to provide for their citizens.
Thankfully, when a politician commits a crime and is not persecuted by his or her own country’s court, the case can be taken to the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established under the Rome Statute and around 120 countries around the world have ratified it, thereby embracing the ICC. Cases that the Court takes are ones regarding genocide, cases against humanity and war crimes. And the Court can only prosecute individuals, not governments or organizations.
How the Secretary of Interior, or the president of Mexico could be tried in the International Criminal Court: the argument would be built upon the violation of human rights. Of course, I’m no expert and still have a long way to go in my studies but here are possible violations I have noticed and could be valid.
Violation 1:
In the Mexican Constitution in Article 3, Clause IV says education must be free. Well, it’s not going be free anymore.
Violation 2:
First of all, the Mexican citizens have a right to protest given by the 9th article of the Mexican constitution and it is claimed that peaceful protests cannot be “deemed unlawful, nor may it be dissolved, unless insults are proffered against the authority or violence is resorted to, or threats are made to intimidate or compel such authority to render the desired decision.” There's a huge loophole, though, because who is to say what an authority figure finds insulting?
Violation 3:
A crime against humanity could be that there is a planned killing. There have been eight people left dead in the Oaxaca protests and many more injured according to a CNN article. If government officials knew the guards who also went to the protests were armed and gave authorization to use violence then this is a serious crime.
People are desperate for the violence and injustice to stop. The Facebook page of "Tuxtla En Resistencia" shows a video of a woman teacher in a in a protest telling the police, “I remember the colonists arriving with swords and horses. The natives were killed by people with power like yourselves. So are we going to get on our knees to be killed by our own people, our own history, our own blood?”
