Exclusive Update - Monsanto in Mexico | Corporate impunity and the beekeeper struggle against transgenic soybeans

Muuk 'Kaab Beekeeper Coop member.

GMO soybean cultivation, sales continue
in Campeche despite court rulings

CORPORATE
IMPUNITY IN THE RULE OF LAW

Devon G. Peña
| Seattle, WA | May 15, 2018

‘We don’t plant GMO seeds; we only sell them.’

– Monsanto discussing court suspension of transgenic soybeans

The pivotal
court ruling on the suspension of the planting of transgenic soybean in the southeastern
Mexican state of Campeche was announced in July 2014; see
the blog post of July 24, 2014. The ruling was based on consideration of
scientific evidence demonstrating to the court’s satisfaction that GMO soybean plantings
pose threats to Mexican honey production in the states of Campeche, Quintana
Roo, and Yucatán.



The ruling endorsed
the plaintiffs’ argument that these threats have not been subject to scientific
risk study or assessment by the agencies granting commercial permits to biotechnology
corporations and the agribusiness operations they serve. Nor had the
authorities followed norms defined by Mexico’s standing as a signatory to important
international norms and legal standards for indigenous consultation wherever and
whenever environmental and other impacts affect indigenous territories.

The Mayan
beekeepers have sued several Mexican government agencies for colluding with
Monsanto and other corporations over the promotion of GMO soybean cultivation
without the required consultative ILO (International Labor Organization) Convention
169 process for indigenous territories. This is a vital moment nullifying NAFTA
supremacy narratives which the beekeepers declare as void from the indigenous standpoint of the right to self-determination.

---

Timeline of the Beekeepers’ Legal and Political Struggle

June
6, 2012. SAGARPA (Mexico’s Agriculture
Ministry), backed by SEMARNAT (Mexico´s environment and natural resources
ministry), grant a permit which allows for genetically modified soy
(MON-04-032-6) tolerant of the herbicide glyphosate to be released to the
environment in a commercial phase.

March 2013. The Mayan beekeepers and allies file
suit challenging the legality of the permit.

March
7 2014. Second District Federal Court rules in favor of
plaintiffs for the resolution of the protection lawsuit. The Second
District Judge accepts the fundamental arguments of the plaintiffs including
the “The right to free prior informed consultation, protected by Article 2 of
the Mexican Constitution and the International Labor Organization´s Convention
169, was violated.”

November
7, 2014. The 2014 lower court ruling is
upheld by Mexico’s Supreme Court and the government agencies are ordered to
comply with indigenous consultation norms under ILO 169 and Article 2 of the
Constitution. Illegal plantings reported between 2014-15.

December
2014-2016. ILO 169 Consultation process starts
but is repeatedly interrupted by reports of continued GMO soybean plantings,
the intimidation of activists and ejidetarios, and lack of progress negotiating
a complete ban in areas within or adjacent to the indigenous communal ejidos
involved in the litigation.

Current Status (2017-18). In 2014, the beekeepers and other ejidetarios joined with Mexico City-based scientists, NGO advocates, and urban popular and food justice activists to establish the Observation Mission Ciudad de Mexico-Campeche to monitor and respond to illegal plantings. They again reported repeated violations of the suspension of soybean cultivation between 2016-17. Monitoring continues as do the illegal plantings. The courts seem posed to intervene again is response to filings related to the amparo rights in the dispute. Some activists and beekeepers suggest the only way to stop illegal planting is to stop seed sales but previous court rulings may have not adequately made this clear.

---

This
development gives us a deeper appreciation for the sudden juridical power enjoyed
by, and the sources informing, the deep historical nature of indigenous consultation
norms invoked under ILO 169. Mexico’s Supreme Court, in November 2014, affirmed
the suspension must be followed before the courts can resolve the dispute over
the planting of transgenic soybeans in a core culture area of Mexican
indigenous autonomy.

The ILO consultation essentially broke down due to violence against
beekeepers, continued impunity in the sale and planting of GMO soybeans, and
widespread land grabs and deforestation tied to expansion of industrialized
agribusinesses fed biotechnology by Monsanto.

GMO soybean
is a small part of the national neoliberal economy but it has outsized cultural and ecological consequences ruining the livelihoods
and autonomy of indigenous peoples. These policies unfold comfortably alongside a wide range of actions that constitute anti-indigenous forms of structural violence by corrupt
Mexican governmental authorities and growers who continue planting an even
wider range of experimental and commercial GMOs with impunity.

About a
year ago, Areli Villalobos, writing in the Mexican investigative news magazine,
Proceso (May 30, 2017), reported on continued
problems with illegal plantings of transgenic soybeans (and other crops) in Campeche
and other states across Mexico. Villalobos flagged her report with the quote: “Monsanto
says it does not plant GM crops in Campeche ... it only sells seeds.”

Monsanto
was responding to a report from a Mexico City and Campeche-based NGO observing and
testing for violations of the ban. On May 26, 2017 the “Observation Mission
Ciudad de México-Campeche” denounced the illegal planting of soybeans in the
states of Campeche, Yucatán, among other neighboring entities, despite the suspension
decreed by the Court pending further outcomes of the ILO 169 indigenous
consultative process.

According
to Villalobos’ report, in a letter to Proceso, Monsanto sought to clarify that it recognized the Supreme Court of Justice of the
Nation (SCJN) ordered the indigenous consultations regarding the commercial permit for the release of GMO soybean  into the environment, and that thus the corporation had “not commercialized seeds of that crop in any of the excluded municipalities.” 

Monsanto further stated that it “does not plant GMO crops for
marketing purposes in Campeche or in the Yucatan peninsula.” However, in the
letter the company noted that it “only sells seeds to producers.”



Villalobos
reports that since March 2016, representatives of Mayan beekeeper communities
and academics and organizations grouped in the Observation Mission denounced
the violations of the rule of law after the discovery of the sowing of this
seed. The Mexican Center for Environmental Law and other non-governmental
organizations also insisted that the ruling of the Supreme Court has not been
complied with since the beginning of the year. A new round of court hearings
are scheduled for late in 2018.

In 2014,
the Mayan beekeepers and other ejidetarios in Campeche joined with Mexico
City-based scientists, NGO advocates, and urban popular and food justice
movement activists to establish the Observation Mission Ciudad de
México-Campeche. 

The Mission monitors and responds to illegal GMO plantings.
They began reporting repeat violations of the suspension of GMO soybean
cultivation between 2016 and 2017. The monitoring continues as do illegal
plantings; the courts are about to get involved again in yet another round of amparo (appeal and due process) sessions.

Some activists, myself included, suggest the only way to stop illegal plantings is to make the courts clearly
dictate that GMO seed sales are also suspended. This problem may have not
been fully addressed or resolved by earlier court rulings. 

I recently spoke with a Mexico City organizer and activist affiliated with the Sin Maíz No
Hay País movement who expressed agreement that GMO seed sales must be banned but cautioned against any belief that would permanently solve the problem. She observed the soybean problem was the same with the case of maize, impunity as part of the (mis)rule of law:

Monsanto
and SAGARPA and all the other agencies and corporations involved in this scandal continue acting
with impunity, not a care in the world if they are caught violating the court
rulings. Monsanto claims not to be planting, but they are still selling seeds
and the seeds are still getting planted and sprayed with herbicides. This is
Mexico, the land where corporate impunity operates in the real execution of the
rule of law.