14 - The Mexican Revolution

Summary

The Mexican Revolution is commonly perceived to have been the first social revolution. The revolutionary Mexican Constitution of 1917, at the time perhaps the most radical the world had seen, is well known, as is the subsequent oil nationalisation of the 1930s that it facilitated. Another significant, albeit less immediately striking, consequence of the revolutionary events that took place in Mexico between 1910 and 1920 was that a large number of claims were made against the Mexican state in respect of injuries caused to foreign nationals as a result of the revolution. Such claims found their basis in a (hotly contested) body of international legal rules that had emerged during the second half of the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth concerning alien protection: that is, concerning the rights of states to protect their nationals overseas and the duties of states when it came to the treatment of foreign nationals in their territory.² The law of alien protection was also known as, or incorporated, state responsibility for injuries to aliens and diplomatic protection. Subsequently, six mixed claims commissions – with the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy – were set up to adjudicate Mexico’s international responsibility for claims that had arisen in respect of loss or damage caused by ‘revolutionary acts’ between 20 November 1910 and 31 May 1920.³ Loss or damage here encompassed personal injury, property loss or damage and breach of contract.⁴ Claims could be brought by ‘corporations, companies, associations, partnerships or individuals’.⁵ In addition, there was a second US commission, the ‘general commission’ (in contrast to the ‘special commission’, as the other US commission was known), which also had jurisdiction over certain other ‘revolutionary damage’ claims.⁶