Protecting Ethnic Diversity Vs. Securing Women’s Political Inclusion: The Role of the Mexican State Reconciling Both.

In September 2013 the Mexican Supreme Court decided on the judicial hierarchy between the Mexican Constitution and international treaties adopted concerning human rights. By levelling both, the Supreme Court created precedent for understanding and deciding upon matters regarding political rights and custom law. The new judicial decision allows judges to employ international treaties above the Constitution for ruling on matters of human rights, including the right indigenous groups have to rule themselves by their own laws. The contradiction between human rights and political rights on the one hand and custom law on the other has affected women’s political rights. This was the case of Eufrosina Cruz, a Zapoteca indigenous women, who like others was prevented from being nominated or elected. The objective of this paper is to analyse if federal and state level authorities have reconcile indigenous custom laws with political rights on a subject like women’s political presence, area in which both are in clear antagonism. The paper focuses on decisions taken by local and federal authorities before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling, from 2007 to 2014. It examines key cases, looking for significant differences and possible effects on the exercise of women's rights that reveal changes in authorities’ resolutions. The paper employs a mixed methodology, based on archival research and semi-structured interviews. The documents included are electoral administrative and judicial authorities’ resolutions, federal and local authorities position papers, relevant international treaties like the International Labour Organisation resolution 169 and Mexican federal and local electoral laws. This paper sustains that even if securing social diversity is an State’s objetive, it also has the duty to reflect and consider the role institutions have for protecting other dimensions of diversity, such as gender in politics.