The Mexican Constitution and its Safeguards against Foreign Investments

Every state has safeguards against foreign investment in its country. Most of the times these safeguards are contained in a main document which governs said countries. This document can take the form of a Constitution. The Mexican constitution contains a safeguard against foreign investments in Article 27, where it is stated that the Mexican state can expropriate private property among other things, due to public interest. Any expropriation must be followed by an indemnification. The price to pay as indemnification shall not exceed the assessment for tax purposes. Mexico has an invaluable opportunity to attract foreign investments but it must provide an assured legal framework to investors. Mexico must learn from the experience acquired in NAFTA and especially from Chapter 11 investment dispute resolution panels through arbitration which has turned into a laboratory for Free Trade Agreements (FTA´s) and Multilateral Investment Treaties (MIT´s) around the world. It is of the utmost importance for Mexico to establish a Constitutional Tribunal whose main purpose will be to verify that laws enacted by Congress and the treaties signed by the President and ratified by the Senate are not against the Constitution in order to avoid unconstitutional actions once the laws are effective like in the case of NAFTA