## Facts

- Rosendo Radilla Pacheco was a social activist in Guerrero, Mexico, associated with local farmers’ organizations.
- On August 25, 1974, Mexican Army personnel arrested Radilla Pacheco in Guerrero; after the arrest, he disappeared and was not seen again.
- Beginning in the 1990s, Radilla Pacheco’s family filed criminal complaints seeking investigation and accountability, but the complaints did not lead to clarification of his fate or punishment of those responsible.
- In the 2000s, Mexico’s Office of the Attorney General of the Republic opened investigations into disappearances like Radilla Pacheco’s, but those efforts still did not resolve the case.
- The family filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against Mexico.
- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights later found Mexico responsible under the American Convention on Human Rights for violations connected to Radilla Pacheco’s disappearance and ordered measures of reparation, including investigation and prosecution in ordinary jurisdiction and limits on military jurisdiction.
- In 2010, Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) considered what Mexican courts and other authorities must do to give effect domestically to the Inter-American Court’s judgment in the Radilla Pacheco matter.

## Issues

1. Whether judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in cases against Mexico are binding on Mexican authorities, including domestic courts.
2. Whether Mexican judges must apply “control de convencionalidad” (conventionality control) by comparing domestic law and practice with the American Convention and the Inter-American Court’s case law.
3. Whether alleged human-rights violations against civilians by military personnel may be investigated or tried in military jurisdiction, or must be handled by ordinary civilian authorities.
4. What role the SCJN and other Mexican courts have in implementing the Inter-American Court’s Radilla Pacheco judgment without re-opening or re-litigating its merits.

## Decision

- The SCJN treated the Inter-American Court’s judgment against Mexico as binding on the Mexican State and not open to re-examination on the merits by Mexican courts.
- The SCJN instructed that Mexican judicial authorities must give effect to the Inter-American Court’s ruling when deciding cases and when determining the institutional consequences for domestic proceedings.
- The SCJN recognized a duty of Mexican judges to conduct conventionality control: to interpret and apply domestic norms in line with the American Convention on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court’s interpretations.
- The SCJN read the constitutional rule on military jurisdiction restrictively and concluded that cases involving serious human-rights violations against civilians—such as enforced disappearance—must proceed before ordinary civilian investigators and courts, not military tribunals.

## Legal Principles

- Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgments in cases where Mexico is a respondent bind Mexican authorities and must be carried out domestically.
- Domestic courts may not question the validity of the Inter-American Court’s final determinations in the specific case; the task is implementation.
- All judges must perform conventionality control within their competence, using the American Convention and Inter-American Court jurisprudence as controlling criteria for interpretation and application of domestic law.
- Military criminal jurisdiction is exceptional; when the alleged conduct involves human-rights violations against civilians, ordinary civilian jurisdiction is required.

## Conclusion

In *On the Case of Radilla Pacheco and Others, Case No. 912, Case No. 2010*, the SCJN set out how Mexico’s judiciary must carry out the Inter-American Court’s Radilla Pacheco judgment: it treated that international judgment as binding, required Mexican judges to apply conventionality control when working with domestic law, and limited military jurisdiction so that serious abuses against civilians—such as enforced disappearance—are investigated and tried in ordinary civilian institutions.
