The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) expressed its firm disagreement with the ruling issued by the U.S. Supreme Court, which grants immunity to arms manufacturers under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
In this regard, the SRE reiterated that it will continue to combat arms trafficking and demand accountability from those who allow this flow of weapons to foment violence by criminal groups that threaten the peace and security of Mexicans.
In a statement, the agency reaffirmed that it will use all legal and diplomatic resources at its disposal to curb illicit arms trafficking.
The U.S. Supreme Court justified its decision by arguing that the companies were not proven to have facilitated illegal gun trafficking.
“Mexico’s lawsuit does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted the illegal sales of firearms by dealers to Mexican traffickers,” said Justice Elena Kagan, author of the recent ruling.
This reverses the previous green light issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which ruled in January 2024 that Mexico could proceed because it sufficiently established that “the defendants aided and abetted the illegal trafficking of their guns into Mexico”.
The lawsuit in question, which ended last Thursday with the Supreme Court’s ruling, was filed by Mexico in August 2021 before a district judge in Boston, Massachusetts.
Despite this setback, the Supreme Court’s decision does not affect the second lawsuit filed by Mexico in 2022 in Tucson, Arizona against five gun stores. This lawsuit is ongoing and is currently in the discovery stage.
Mexico has managed to position this issue not only at the bilateral level, but also at the multilateral level, through UN Security Council Resolution 2616 in 2021. In the same vein, it is awaiting the opinion issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on this issue.