At the Mercy of the Mexican Supreme Court: The Implications of Party Capability on Indigenous People’s Cases

Indigenous Peoples in Mexico have long struggled in securing their rights in colonizing states. Applying party capability theory, this paper seeks to empirically understand the Mexican Supreme Court’s behavior in cases pertaining to Indigenous Peoples. This paper thus evaluates the degree to which the Mexican Supreme Court is indeed an impartial actor that produces “equal protection under the law” for everyone (Galanter, 1974). Specifically, this paper examines the questions: To what extent does the Mexican Supreme Court protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights? Are Indigenous Peoples legally affected by the power disparity perpetuated by the inequality in the country? This paper thus seeks to fill the quantitative gap in scholarship on Indigenous Peoples and applies party capability theory to empirically examine how power disparities and the type of rights affect indigenous claims before the Supreme Court