Open Source Content Management

This year, a Mexican federal court issued a set of controversial precedents regarding the rights of legal entities. These precedents are not generally binding, but they represent a setback in the protection of fundamental rights and, specifically, with respect to social corporate responsibility.

One of the main objectives of Mexico’s current Federal Administration is to strengthen the energy sector, with particular emphasis on the State’s power and oil companies: Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex). In line with this objective, on March 10, 2021, a substantial reform to the Electricity Industry Law went into effect, which purports to provide security and reliability to the electricity system, as well as to foster the country’s energy autonomy.

For anyone who had any doubts, the recent COP26 climate change conference made it clear that the biggest and most complex challenge facing humanity requires collaboration. No institution or organization is capable of making a significant impact acting in isolation.

Investment decisions taken by companies worldwide are increasingly based on (if not driven by) Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria. Even though these criteria are a tool to evaluate the sustainability of companies, they are not comprehensively supported by Mexican legal provisions and therefore, are not linked to legal compliance.

Latin American competition authorities refuse to be shaken by the covid-19 pandemic and are stepping up their scrutiny of the region’s fast-growing e-commerce and digital banking sectors, said speakers at a Latin Lawyer webinar earlier this week.

Alongside China, Germany is still considered to be the world’s leading exporting nation. Made in Germany has long been an indication of superior quality and standards. The great reputation of German products extends to the import of raw materials, finished goods, components and subcomponents around the world. However, it is clear that human rights and environmental protection standards may not be uniformly met by all international companies in such extensive and complex supply chains.

Recent decades have featured unprecedented growth and change across industries and the economy. New ways to do and fund business are rising with ever-greater speed thanks to globalization and new technologies. Hand in hand with these recent developments, awareness and concern about the side effects that both companies’ and consumers’ actions have on a global scale have increased, stressing newly found concerns for the well-being of both society at large and the environment.

Introduction

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted in 2015 gave new impetus to the growing interest of the public agenda to ensure environmental and human rights protection, and intensified the discussion on corporate social responsibility in achieving this goal.

In September 2016, Mexico ratified the Paris Agreement, thus committing to reducing by 2030 its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22% compared to its baseline. Even though the Mexican government is mainly in charge of achieving this goal, this is not possible without the active participation of the business sector, as this latter is the responsible for the majority of GHG emissions in Mexico.

Corruption represents a global systemic problem. The Mexican Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) has formally recognized that an organized civil society has a mitigating and reductive effect on corruption, hence, it is fundamental for the new regulatory anticorruption structure in the country. Corruption substantially affects the provision of public services, economic growth, human rights, and the rule of law. This harmful phenomenon, that has often been defined as “the abuse of public power for private benefit”, is present in both the public and the private industry, frequently, in the corporate sector.