MEXICAN LEGISLATION IN THE LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

In: Social science quarterly, Band 50, Heft 4, S. 833-854

Abstract

A reprint from The Southwestern Political & Social Science Quarterly, 1928, 9, Sep, 2, 144-165. The protests of the US State Dept against certain legislation affecting mineral rights & land ownership in Mexico as confiscatory & therefore in violation of internat'l law are mentioned. The provisions of the Mexican law against which the protests have been lodged are examined & a definition of what constitutes confiscation is offered. Then the provisions of internat'l law which are said to make such legislation null & void are examined. The laws against which US protests were lodged were inherited from an earlier period of Mexican history & from the Spanish regime. The US State Dept held that they were confiscatory & therefore in violation of internat'l law. The Supreme Court of Mexico merely declared that they were in violation of the Mexican Constitution & therefore null & void. It is shown that the US considers confiscation of property all right if it is carried out for moral, sanitary, or olefactory considerations in the US. But if it Is based on difuciary considerations or the philosophy of the soc use of property in Mexico, the US thinks it all wrong. The people with agri'al holdings in Mexico do not seem to have raised any great furor against confiscation, but the oil Co's (Doheny, Sinclair, & Mellon) have. This raises the question how far a nation is morally bound to go in affording protection abroad to corp's which it is prosecuting at home for violation of its own laws. Harry Sinclair has already been convicted for contempt of the US Senate; Doheny narrowly escaped conviction of a criminal charge. While the US Dept of Justice has attempted to put these men behind prison bars, the US State Dept has been defending their interests in Mexico. M. Maxfield.