| Montreal, 14/04/2009 – On 8 April 2009, the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
determined
that, due to the existence of pending proceedings initiated by Mexico pursuant to Article 14(3)(a) of the
North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation,
it could proceed no further with consideration of submission SEM-07-005 (Drilling waste in Cunduacan).
In the submission, the Tabasco Human Rights
Committee (Comité de Derechos Humanos de Tabasco) and the Santo Tomas Ecological Association (Asociación Ecológica Santo Tomás) (the “Submitters”)
asserted that Mexico was failing to effectively enforce its environmental law with respect to a drilling-waste treatment and disposal project in Cunduacán,
Tabasco, Mexico, by the company Consorcio de Arquitectura y Ecología (Caresa). They stated that Caresa began its project without authorization and without
adopting pollution prevention measures, and that it provided false information to ultimately obtain the required environmental impact authorization.
In its Response, Mexico notified the Secretariat
of the existence of an administrative proceeding before Profepa, an administrative action (procedimiento contencioso administrativo) in Federal Tax and
Administrative Court (Tribunal Federal de Justicia Fiscal y Administrativa), and a criminal proceeding before the Office of the Attorney General of the
Republic (Procuraduría General de la República), all of which according to Mexico are directly related to the matter raised in the Submission. For this
reason, Mexico requested that, pursuant to Article 14(3)(a) of the Agreement, the Secretariat proceed no further in processing the submission.
The Secretariat, after carefully considering the submission and Mexico’s Response, decided that in light of pending proceedings pursuant to NAAEC Article
14(3)(a), it could indeed proceed no further with the submission. The Secretariat is not a court or judicial body and does not make findings about
the merits or demerits of assertions raised in a submission.
The Executive Director of the Secretariat, Mr. Felipe Adrián Vázquez-Gálvez, recused himself from all matters relating to this submission.
For more information, please visit the registry of submission SEM-07-005 (Drilling waste in Cunduacan),
and the CEC’s Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters webpage. |
