Binational Human Rights: The U.S.-Mexico Experience

by William Paul Simmons (Editor), Carol Mueller (Editor)

Overview

Mexico ranks highly on many of the measures that have proven significant for creating a positive human rights record, including democratization, good health and life expectancy, and engagement in the global economy. Yet the nation's most vulnerable populations suffer human rights abuses on a large scale, such as gruesome killings in the Mexican drug war, decades of violent feminicide, migrant deaths in the U.S. desert, and the ongoing effects of the failed detention and deportation system in the States. Some atrocities have received extensive and sensational coverage, while others have become routine or simply ignored by national and international media. Binational Human Rights examines both well-known and understudied instances of human rights crises in Mexico, arguing that these abuses must be understood not just within the context of Mexican policies but in relation to the actions or inactions of other nations—particularly the United States.

The United States and Mexico share the longest border in the world between a developed and a developing nation; the relationship between the two nations is complex, varied, and constantly changing, but the policies of each directly affect the human rights situation across the border. Binational Human Rights brings together leading scholars and human rights activists from the United States and Mexico to explain the mechanisms by which a perfect storm of structural and policy factors on both sides has led to such widespread human rights abuses. Through ethnography, interviews, and legal and economic analysis, contributors shed new light on the feminicides in Ciudad Juárez, the drug war, and the plight of migrants from Central America and Mexico to the United States. The authors make clear that substantial rhetorical and structural shifts in binational policies are necessary to significantly improve human rights.

Contributors: Alejandro Anaya Muñoz, Luis Alfredo Arriola Vega, Timothy J. Dunn, Miguel Escobar-Valdez, Clara Jusidman, Maureen Meyer, Carol Mueller, Julie A. Murphy Erfani, William Paul Simmons, Kathleen Staudt, Michelle Téllez.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812209983
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press
Publication date:	08/12/2014
Series:	Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

William Paul Simmons is Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Arizona and author of Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other and An-Archy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas's Political Thought. Carol Mueller is Professor of Sociology and former Director of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. She is coeditor of Repression and Mobilization and Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, among other titles.

Table of Contents

Introduction William Paul Simmons Carol Mueller 1

Part I Migration to the United Stated in Binational Context

Chapter 1 Reflections on Immigration, Binational Policies, and Human Rights Tragedies Miguel Escobar-Valdez 27

Chapter 2 Sexual Violence Against Migrant Woman and Children William Paul Simmons Michelle Téllez 44

Chapter 3 Immigration Enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Where Human Rights and National Sovereignty Collide Timothy J. Dunn 68

Part II The Mexican Drug War in Binational Contexts

Chapter 4 Politics of Death in the Drug War: The Right to Kill and Suspensions of Human Rights in Mexico, 2000-2012 Julie A. Murphy Erfani 91

Chapter 5 Migration, Violence, and "Security Primacy" at the Guatemala-Mexico Border Luis Alfredo Arriola Vega 112

Part III Structural Violence and Civil Society in Ciudad Juárez

Chapter 6 The Binational Roots of the Femicides in Ciudad Juárez Carol Mueller 129

Chapter 7 Reflections on Antiviolence Civil Society Organizations in Ciudad Juárez Clara Jusidman 146

Part IV Transnational Activism and Human Rights

Chapter 8 The Persistence of Femicide amid Transnational Activist Networks Kathleen Staudt 165

Chapter 9 Transnational Advocacy for Human Right in Contemporary Mexico Alejandro Anaya Muñoz 181

Chapter 10 Restrictions on U.S. Security Assistance and Their Limitations in Promoting Changes to the Human Rights Situation in Mexico Maureen Meyer 202

Conclusion: Multiple States of Exception, Structural Violence and Prospects for Change William Paul Simmons 221

Notes 233

References 251

List of Contributors 281

Index 285

Acknowlegments 299

Editorial Reviews

"Simmons and Mueller have assembled a great set of studies that use a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide solid explanation and understanding of the many complexities surrounding Mexico as a human rights outlier. This is a great contribution to a heated and controversial set of issues.", University of Essex

"A timely intervention, Binational Human Rights brings together works by a diverse array of scholars from U.S. and Mexican universities to provide a much-needed binational understanding of the political and economic forces that render poor citizens and migrants vulnerable to human rights abuse."

Yale University Alicia Schmidt Camacho

"Simmons and Mueller have assembled a great set of studies that use a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide solid explanation and understanding of the many complexities surrounding Mexico as a human rights outlier. This is a great contribution to a heated and controversial set of issues."

Universityof Essex Todd Landman

Simmons and Mueller have assembled a great set of studies that use a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide solid explanation and understanding of the many complexities surrounding Mexico as a human rights outlier. This is a great contribution to a heated and controversial set of issues.

University of Essex Todd Landman