MEXICO CITY (CN) - In her press conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said a United Nations decision on the Mexican government's involvement in forced disappearances only focuses on past events and administrations, without considering recent efforts.
Thursday's decision from the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances is a first in the history of the U.N.
It determined the Mexican government has been and continues to be sufficiently involved in the process of forced disappearance in Mexico and urges the U.N., Secretary-General to refer the situation to the U.N. General Assembly - a decision Sheinbaum soundly rejected.
"Several issues were not considered by the committee. That's why the document was rejected," Sheinbaum said, additionally arguing the committee extrapolated data from only four Mexican states between 2009 and 2017, which she says doesn't concern her administration and is mostly linked to organized crime.
She also said the definition of forced disappearance at the hands of the state is defined by the United Nations as being done so for political reasons, which she also rejects as having occurred during her administration. The Mexican government's maintains that disappearances happened only in the past, specifically in the context of the war on drugs during President Felipe Calderon's administration.
"This has nothing to do with the work we do with the search collectives, with the solidarity we have with the parents, with the relatives who unfortunately have a disappeared person; the alert work we are doing, the work we are doing to eradicate this terrible crime of disappearance in our country, mainly linked to organized crime," she said, echoing a statement Mexican officials issued Thursday. "All this is not taken into account; that is why we reject the report."
Unprecedented rejection
Alexia Martinez Montalban, a lawyer and international expert with the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, says the Mexican government's defense is inadequate.
Noting that while the Mexican government's reaction is a purely political maneuver and not illegal, she said it is inappropriate because the government ratified in 2007 the very convention giving the committee the power to do what it is doing.
"The ratification implies recognizing the committee's capacity to monitor the implementation of the convention. The committee has several powers, among them is the power to conduct an on-site visit to the country, which it did in 2021," Martinez Montalban said.
She added the committee also received requests for urgent action from civil society organizations, one of the mechanisms that can be used to encourage the committee to urgently inform the state of a disappearance crisis and to become aware of the case.
"Another mechanism is individual communications, leveraging the committee's capacity, along with reports sent by the Mexican state itself and civil society organizations," she added. "The committee has been gathering information from Mexico from many sources and through many mechanisms. And during the years, organizations had requested that Article 34 be activated, which is the article that carries a higher level of severity or intensity, which is to bring the matter to the U.N. General Assembly."
Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance states that if any information of systemic disappearance under the jurisdiction of a state party is provided to the committee, it must be brought to the U.N. General Assembly through the U.N. Secretary-General.
In September 2025, the committee requested additional information regarding the forced disappearance situation, which the Mexican government provided but kept confidential at its request - an atypical procedure, according to Martinez Montalban. The information was made public last week.
"Let's put it this way: the state's legal and institutional efforts haven't been enough," she said, noting the committee found disappearances have continued since its 2021 visit. "The committee acknowledges this, and another finding worth sharing is that there isn't a policy in place at the federal level; it's not so much the ordering of disappearances, but rather the inadequacy of investigations and the complicity of the authorities that create conditions for disappearances to continue in Mexico."
The Mexican government's official statement claims the U.N. report fails to consider recent reforms to the General Population Law and the General Law on Forced Disappearances of Persons passed in July 2025, which promote a series of legal reforms and institutional adjustments to address the disappearance crisis.
"The committee has echoed many of their demands regarding the need to end the near-total impunity surrounding disappearances. The committee's urgent action mechanisms have been very helpful to many families in encouraging the state to take action. So, the fact that the Mexican state now ignores or rejects this position, this decision, is also a way of turning its back on the victims of disappearance," she added.
Because this is a procedure that has never been applied in history, it is unclear when the decision will be referred to the U.N. General Assembly.
"What we do know is that it's now in the hands of the United Nations Secretary-General. We don't know if something will happen before then that the Secretary-General can do. The article of the convention itself states that it only contemplates the committee referring it to the Secretary-General," Martinez Montalban said.
Findings and reactions
The committee cited the discovery of 4,500 clandestine graves with over 6,200 bodies, 4,600 human remains and around 72,000 unidentified human remains since it began monitoring the situation in 2012.
The committee found there is direct state involvement in forced disappearance on a large enough scale occurring in a systematic pattern with state acquiescence and structural impunity.
It also acknowledged the Mexican government's position that forced disappearances are perpetrated mainly by criminal organizations and not the state, but found sufficient state involvement, or lack of prevention, to implicate the Mexican government in crimes against humanity under Article 5 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
"International law does not require crimes against humanity to occur nationwide or be orchestrated at the highest levels of government. What matters is the scale, the pattern of the attacks, and the targeting of civilians," said Juan Alban-Alencastro, committee chair, in a U.N. press release on Thursday announcing the report.
Seven non-governmental agencies fully supported the U.N. decision and responded to the Mexican government's rejection in a joint statement on Thursday.
"Disqualification is not a state strategy. It is worrying that the official response qualifies a technical report like the one presented today by the CED as biased and lacking in rigor. Denigrating the messenger to evade the message is a practice that Mexico, in its democratic aspiration, should not take. Sovereignty is exercised by complying with the treaties, not discrediting the recommendations of the agencies of which Mexico is a voluntary part," the agencies said.
The International Federation for Human Rights, along with Strategic Human Rights Litigation, the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights and victims' collectives, have been documenting enforced disappearances in a widespread and systematic manner in the country.
They argue in a statement that disappearances often have occurred with the authorization, support or acquiescence of local public officials, and frequently in contexts of corruption for more than a decade.
In a Friday report, Amnesty International called on the Mexican government to release all information pertaining to situations of forced disappearance in the country as urged under Article 34.
According to the group, the disappearance crisis has left more than 133,000 people disappeared and more than 72,000 people unidentified.
Source: Courthouse News Service
