Some Mexican Politicians Want Their Government to Sue America for Reparations

LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST:

Some Mexican politicians want their old territory back and are trying to file a suit in the International Court of Justice for reparations and indemnification according to Foreign Policy. 

It stems from the Mexican-American War which lasted from 1846 to 1848, when the United States took over half of Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The argument is that the United States invaded Mexico and hinges on  a line in the first sentence of the treaty, which admits that the United States invaded Mexico and therefore signed the treaty under duress, making the treaty null.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a prominent leftist politician, is leading the charge for the Mexican government to file a suit.  His lawyer, told reporters that they were right in pursuing this.

We are going to make a strong and tough case, because we are right. They were in Mexican territory in a military invasion,” Guillermo Hamdan Castro said to reporters last month who started a website outlining their demands.

However, it is unlikely the Mexican government will pursue this or it will even be allowed in the courts. The United States also doesn’t recognize the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction to enforce its decisions in cases such as this.

Mexican nationalists have been wanting the United States to return the territory Mexico lost in the war for decades. The nationalist socialist Nationalist Front of Mexico states on their website:

“We reject the occupation of our nation in its northern territories, an important cause of poverty and emigration. We demand that our claim to all the territories occupied by force by the United States be recognized in our Constitution, and we will bravely defend, according to the principle of self-determination to all peoples, the right of the Mexican people to live in the whole of our territory within its historical borders, as they existed and were recognized at the moment of our independence.”

President Enrique Pena Nieto has not responded to these calls but has stood up to President Donald Trump. He canceled a state visit to Washington D.C after Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall he promised in the campaign.

WATCH TLR’S LATEST VIDEO: