With Mexico’s judicial landscape undergoing significant changes as part of a broader reform agenda, understanding the implications of recent developments is crucial for anyone engaged in the region’s legal and business sectors. On August 21, 2004, Mexico’s federal judiciary launched an indefinite strike in response to proposed reforms by President López Obrador, including the controversial plan to elect federal judges by popular vote. These developments have created uncertainty, impacting both domestic and international legal proceedings. 

This webinar will offer an in-depth analysis of the proposed judicial reform, the effects of the indefinite strike, and the broader business and financial repercussions. Duncan Wood, President and CEO of the Pacific Council, will make introductory remarks before turning the discussion over to Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra, Alejandra Palacios Prieto, and Francisca Pou Giménez.

Guest Speaker

Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra is a professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City. He has a Master's and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and his areas of investigation include political economy and Mexican politics. Mayer-Serra has published several books, the last of which was published in 2021 by Penguin Random House and titled "Y mi palabra es la ley." AMLO en Palacio Nacional. He also writes a weekly op-ed article for Reforma, a daily broadsheet newspaper in Mexico City, and together with Federico Reyes Heroles, hosts a weekly TV program, Primer Círculo.

Mayer-Serra was General Director of the Center of Investigation for Teaching Economics (CIDE) from 1995 until he was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OECD in May 2004, a position he held until November 2006.

Mayer-Serra was also an independent Member of the Board of Directors of Petróleos Mexicanos, Pemex, from October 2014 to April 2019. He is part of the National System of Researchers from Conahcyt and achieved the highest level, SNI III.

Guest Speaker

Alejandra Palacios Prieto is a public policy expert specializing in strategy, antitrust and competition regulation, and network industries. She serves as an Independent Board Member of Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (NYSE: PAC; BMV: GAP), Mexico´s largest airport operator, where she sits in the Sustainability Committee of BBVA Mexico, Mexico’s largest financial institution, and of Grupo Alfa (BMV: ALFAA). Additionally, she is a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute and a member of the Latin American Initiative at George Washington University’s Competition & Innovation Lab (GW CIL).

Alejandra was the first female Chair of Mexico’s antitrust agency, the Federal Economic Competition Commission (COFECE), from 2013 to 2021. During her tenure, she led the agency through groundbreaking antitrust cases, establishing its global reputation as a top competition authority. Under her leadership, COFECE received the prestigious EDGE Certification for gender equality, marking a significant achievement as the first public entity in the Americas to do so. Her international influence extended through her roles as Vice President of the International Competition Network, the premier global organization on antitrust comprised of 140 competition authorities, and as a member of the OECD's Competition Committee Board.

Palacios holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from ITAM, where she graduated with the highest honors. She also holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from ITAM, and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE).

Palacios is a member of the Trilateral Commission, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Mexican Chapter of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), and the Advisory Committee of the Business School at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Guest Speaker

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Francisca Pou Giménez is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is also Lecturer at Law at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She holds a Doctorate and an LLM from Yale Law School and a Law Degree from Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. She has been a visiting professor in Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Canada, Belarus, and Italy.

Before entering her academic positions, she was a law clerk in the Mexican Supreme Court for eight years, where she had the opportunity to delve deep into regional practices of constitutional adjudication. She is a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers in the highest category (Level III) and of several academic networks, such as the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S), the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL), the Yale Latin American Seminar of Political and Constitutional Theory (SELA), or the Network of Latin American Scholars on Gender, Sexuality and Legal Education (Red Alas).

Her scholarship and teaching focus on courts (judicial review, judicial communication, institutional design), constitutions (constitutional change, comparative study of Latin American constitutionalism), and fundamental rights. In this latter domain, she has focused on mechanisms of rights protection, anti-discrimination law, reproductive rights, freedom of speech, and multi-level rights protection in Latin America. She is co-editor of Women, Gender and Constitutionalism in Latin America (Routledge, 2024) and of Proportionality and Transformation: Theory and Practice from Latin America (CUP, ASCL Comparative Series, 2022).

To register for this webinar, visit Zoom Registration Page.