Environmental Impunity Index Mexico 2020 (Indice de Impunidad Ambiental Mexico 2020 IGI AMB 2020)

Abstract

The Environmental Impunity Index presents a methodological proposal to measure in a comparative way the actions, capacities and operation of environmental policies among entities at the national level in Mexico. The Study is organized in four dimensions: institutional capacity (structural), environmental degradation (functional), environmental crime (functional), and intergenerational strategy (structural). We understand “environmental impunity” as: i) the impossibility of investigating, prosecuting, punishing and repairing crimes and damages against the environment, whether this is a consequence of both the lack of institutional capacities and the political will of the authorities; ii) the absence of application or fulfillment of environmental and climate policy objectives, due to the lack of institutional capacities or political will, as they affect the possibility of effectively protecting the environment and guaranteeing full enjoyment of the human right to an environment. healthy environment, and; iii) the lack of long-term or intergenerational public policy strategies and programs that reduce the risk of suffering harm or enjoying access to natural resources that the most vulnerable populations, future generations, and even other species and other species may suffer. This model represents an approach environmental problems that draws on contemporary environmental perspectives such as environmental justice, green criminology and the recognition of the right to a healthy environment. In this sense, environmental impunity implies both the existence of environmental crimes and crimes, activities that cause damage and risks to ecosystems and human communities, as well as the non-existence or insufficiency of institutional capacities and resources to protect the environment and guarantee respect for the law. to a healthy environment. In order to avoid that some dimensions have more weight in the results because they contain a greater number of variables, each dimension has an identical weight of 25% in the total estimate of the index. In this way, the maximum possible value of the index is 4, which would correspond to 100%, and each dimension obtains a value equivalent to 1.