ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the process fostered by the social movement of relatives of disappeared persons in Mexico that achieved the implementation of a new legal regime for the search of the disappeared. The first part of the chapter analyses the framing of the human rights conflict that arose between relatives of disappeared persons and the Mexican state. The second part assesses the results that the mobilisation of relatives obtained through the legal-political strategy of expanding rights. The case studies are Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila (FUUNDEC), a social actor that promoted the creation of the right to search in the case of disappeared persons, and the Movimiento por Nuestros Desaparecidos en México (MNDM), a movement that emerged to promote the creation of a general law on the matter of disappeared persons, a law designed as a minimum requirement of rights. The result of the actions of FUUNDEC and the MNDM was the publication of the Ley General en Materia de Desaparición Forzada de Personas, Desaparición Cometida por Particulares y del Sistema Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas and with it, the recognition, at the national level, of the right to search in the case of disappeared persons.
