The SMU Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center in collaboration with the SMU Rowling Center for Business Law & Leadership and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey would like to invite you to the 2025 Mexican Legal Perspectives Symposium.

 

Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Location: HT Ballroom, Ground Floor, Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer St., Dallas, TX  75205

Parking: Binkley Garage, 3105 Binkley Ave., Dallas, TX  75205

 

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required and the seats are first come, first served. Please click below for registration.

 

Click on each panel  you plan to attend in-person or if you would like to join online at any time, the link to connect to the live stream will be sent out two days before the event.

 

NOTE: Please note that even though you might be on the waitlist for the lunch, you are welcome to join the panel after lunch. That panel is not sold out, so please plan to attend the panel.

 

 

PROGRAM

9:00-9:20 a.m.	Introduction / Welcome remarks •  Pablo Mijangos, SMU History Department / Texas-Mexico Center •  David Salazar, GRUMA/Mission Foods •  Ana Pamela Romero, Tecnológico de Monterrey
9:20-10:20 a.m.	Panel 1 – Constitutional Reforms: Judicial System and Regulatory Agencies •  Francisca Pou, UNAM •  Alejandro Faya, COFECE •  Moderator: Eduardo Romero Tagle, Ellwanger Henderson LLLP; former clerk at SCJN
10:20-10:40 a.m.	Coffee Break sponsored by International Law Section of the State Bar of Texas
10:40-11:40 a.m.	Panel 2 – Unpacking the Energy Reform: Its Legal Implications Across Borders •  Luis Alberto Serra Barragán, School of Social Sciences and Government, Tecnológico de Monterrey •  Juan M. Alcalá, Holland & Knight LLP •  Moderator: Monika U. Ehrman, Dedman School of Law
11:40-11:55 p.m.	Room change
12:00-1:25 p.m.	Lunch and Keynote Address •  José Ramón Cossío, former Mexican Supreme Court Justice •  Pablo Mijangos, SMU History Department / Texas-Mexico Center •  Moderator: Eric F. Hinton, Rowling Center for Business Law and Leadership
1:25-1:35 p.m.	Room change
1:35-2:45 p.m.	Panel 3 – Navigating Turbulent Waters: The Upcoming Review of USMCA •  Francisco Peña, Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton LLP •  Pedro Alfonso Elizalde, Tecnológico de Monterrey •  Moderator: Iliana Rodríguez Santibañez, Tecnológico de Monterrey
2:45-3:00 p.m.	Closing Remarks •  Jim Hollifield, SMU Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center

 

 

On June 2, 2024, the Mexican electorate gave an overwhelming majority to Morena's presidential candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, and her coalition's candidates for the houses of Congress. Morena also won 7 of the nine governorships under dispute, making it the ruling party in 24 of the 32 states that compose the Mexican Republic. With these numbers, Morena has consolidated itself as the new hegemonic party and achieved the necessary power to transform the country's constitution and legal system radically. The guideline for such changes was defined by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last February in the so-called "Plan C," a set of initiatives for constitutional reform that aim to regularize the military's growing presence in all areas of government, increase the number of crimes that warrant mandatory pretrial imprisonment, eliminate regulatory and transparency agencies, restore state preponderance in the energy sector, weaken the national electoral institute, and replace the entire federal judiciary with judges appointed by popular vote. Taken together, these reforms entail the most radical transformation of Mexico's Constitution since 1917. Except for the electoral reform (which is still being discussed), all these changes have already been signed into law.

 

Among the different changes, judicial reform is probably the one with the largest repercussions in the long run. Ever since 1857, the main task of the federal judiciary has been to protect constitutional rights through the amparo suit (juicio de amparo), which allows any inhabitant of the republic to challenge a wide range of state actions, from laws to taxes and "definitive" rulings of state courts. As a result, federal rulings and jurisprudence have historically been among the most important instruments for interpreting and providing uniformity to the Mexican legal system. If the ruling party now has control of lawmaking chambers and the federal judiciary, and it openly announced a political agenda contrary to the reforms enacted over the last forty years, it is foreseeable that the entire legal system will suffer a dramatic transformation in the next few years.

 

The annual Symposium "Mexican Legal Perspectives," supported by The Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center at Southern Methodist University (SMU), and in collaboration with the Robert B. Rowling Center for Business Law & Leadership at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, aims to become a top-level forum to address the coming changes in the Mexican legal system, their multiple ramifications, and their effects in the areas that most affect the U.S.-Mexico relationship and particularly the U.S.-Texas border: bilateral trade, international investment, tariffs, natural resources management, and migration control. It is addressed primarily to international business lawyers, businesspeople in Texas and Mexico, and features selected speakers/specialists on each topic with the highest professional standing.

 

 

Any person who requires a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability in order to participate in this program should contact the SMU Tower Center at texasmexico@smu.edu  in advance at least 4 days prior to the event to arrange for the accommodation.

 

 

SMU Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center 

www.smu.edu/TexasMexico  

Southern Methodist University (SMU)

3300 University Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75275-0117

214-768-4716 texasmexico@smu.edu