In an August 22, 2024 written statement “On Mexico’s Judicial Reform Proposal,”  US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar stated, “Popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy. Any judicial reform should have the right kinds of safeguards that will ensure the judicial branch will be strengthened and not subject to the corruption of politics. . . I also think that the debate over the direct election of judges in these times, as well as the fierce politics if the elections for judges in 2025 and 2027 were to be approved, will threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”

The same day, Canada’s Ambassador to Mexico, Graeme Clark, joined Salazar in implicitly threatening economic harm to Mexico if the proposed judicial reforms proceed. Clark stated, “My investors are concerned, they want stability, they want a judicial system that works if there are problems.”

The US is by far the largest source of direct foreign investment in Mexico. The country is economically reliant on these investments. In response to Ambassador Salazar’s direct intervention in a rule of law issue internal to Mexico, and the US and Canadian Ambassadors’ implicit economic threats, Mexico’s outgoing President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has “paused” embassy relations with both the US and Canada.

Under the principle of State sovereignty, the choice of national rule of law models falls under the purview of a nation’s internal affairs. The principle of non-intervention remains a well-established part of international law. The prohibition of intervention “is a corollary of every state’s right to sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence” (Oppenheim’s International Law, p 428). Thus, Article 3(e) of the Charter of the Organization of American States says, “Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State.”

This is consistent with multiple resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. In 1965, the General Assembly adopted a “Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Domestic Affairs of States” (UNGA resolution 2131 (XX). Five years later, the General Assembly passed Resolution 2625(XXV) (1970), which includes a section on “The principle concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter.” In DRC V. Uganda (2005), the International Court of Justice noted that “the principle of non-intervention prohibits a State ‘to intervene , directly or indirectly, with or without armed force, in support of the internal opposition within a State’ ” (ICJ Reports 2005, para. 164).

In this case, the Ambassador has placed a weighty thumb on the scale in favor of the internal opposition in Mexico, represented by the PRI and PAN parties, which viscerally oppose judicial reforms proposed by the government, and favor continuing the traditional process of selection of judges by entrenched elites representing powerful economic interests. During Mexico’s recent election campaign, the Presidential and down ballot candidates of the PRI/PAN coalition strenuously objected to the judicial reforms proposed by the country’s governing Morena party.

The PRI/PAN candidates, from the President on down, were overwhelmingly rejected by the country’s voters. What they could not win at the ballot box, the opposition now seeks to achieve through outside interference in Mexico’s sovereignty.

It is ironic and hypocritical that Ambassador Salazar, who notes in his statement that “I served as Colorado’s Attorney General for six years where I was the chief law enforcement officer of my state,” is condemning direct election of judges as “undemocratic” and “subject to…corruption.” State judges in Colorado are retained by direct popular election following an initial appointment. Colorado is one of 39 US states that provides for the direct election of at least some of their judges. (Equal Justice Initiative, Judicial Selection.)

Certainly, under the US federal system, Ambassador Salazar would not support action by the US federal government to threaten Colorado or any of those other 38 states that provide for the direct election of judges. It is even less justifiable for the US to economically threaten Mexico, a sovereign nation, because it is considering direct popular election of judges.

Ambassador Salazar should publicly rescind his August 22 statement in its entirety, and apologize to Mexico and its people.