We are proud to announce that our newest LIDS Global group is Red Estudiantil de Investigación Jurídica – ELD from Escuela Libre de Derecho!
Here is a message from the group introducing themselves!
Mexico is a paradoxical country in many ways. Culturally, we are part of Latin America, but economically we are part of North America. We are the country that has the highest number of free trade treaties. We have one of the richest men in the world, but almost fifty percent of our population lives in poverty. We are the eleventh economy in the world, but our public policies do not create enough jobs and most of our workforce has to go into the informal market or migrate to other countries in order to find a job. We have a varied and multicultural population, but we discriminate the indigenous groups that are part of it. We are aware of the need of laws to be able to live, as a society, in an orderly fashion, yet, we tend to disobey the law. We are aware of the benefits of good education policies, but our education system is among the worst in the world.
In addition to these paradoxical problems, we suffer a corruption crisis – many public officials take advantage of their positions in order to favor their own personal interests, consolidating economical and political elites, eroding the government´s legitimacy, and creating a patrimonial conception of power –, a public security crisis – organized crime groups, ranging from drug cartels to kidnapping bands to human trafficking organizations, have taken over large parts of the territory and coopted local police forces, forcing the federal armed forces to step into the maintaining of public security –, a health-care crisis – the lowest socio-economical groups have no access to health services –, and a food crisis – twenty three percent of the population experiences food poverty and twelve percent of it experiences chronic malnourishment –.
But just as we are aware of the problems we suffer as a country, we are aware of our nation´s potential to overcome them. We share many of these problems with developing and developed countries around the world, some of which have law schools that are already participating in LIDS Global research projects.
Our main interest at the Red Estudiantil de Investigación Jurídica de la Escuela Libre de Derecho (REIJ – ELD) is to work with LIDS Global and these schools from around the world, analyzing the problems our countries experience both on the individual level and the collective level, the impact individual problems have on the international community and collective problems on individual countries, and coming up with ideas and solutions to tackle down these problems and create an environment that is healthier and more beneficial for an harmonic development of our societies.
From left to right: Manuel Mansilla Moya, Alexandra Pérez López, Perla Itzel Salgado Román, and Professor Manuel Alexandro Munive Páez