Among the many Indigenous struggles taking place throughout North America, the high-profile resistance to a flagship project of the Mexican government shows how transnational alliances can have a profound impact on public dialogue about the rights of Indigenous Peoples and nature.
While the so-called Mayan train, or Tren Maya, seems to be moving ahead, by mobilizing international law in an innovative way, these alliances have highlighted the dangers from, and alternatives to, existing models of regional integration.
Tren Maya, a megaproject in southeastern Mexico that is partially operational, was announced in 2018 and rapidly became the flagship project of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) and his populist left-wing MORENA government. The Mayan train project entails a 1,500 km railway system connecting the nine principal cities and over 50 municipalities of the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
Indigenous resistance to the “Mayan” train
While AMLO received national and international support for the Mayan train, the project was harshly criticized by environmental groups, archeologists and other experts, Mayan communities and the general public. This opposition ensured the project escalated into a transnational issue.
After construction on the project started in 2020, 150 civil society and Indigenous organizations from the Yucatán Peninsula voiced their dissent in a letter to the government, citing grave violations of human rights, especially the rights of Indigenous communities, as well as environmental risks to the fragile ecosystem of the peninsula.
Organizations—including the Mexican Centre for Environmental Law (CEMDA), and Indigenous groups like the Regional Indigenous and Popular Council (CRIPX), the Múuch’ Xíinbal Assembly, and the Chuun t’aan Collective—took legal action against the government. They contend that the Mayan train violates Article 4 of the Mexican constitution, which guarantees the right to a healthy environment, as well as rights to clean water and to information, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples established in international human rights treaties ratified by Mexico and protected by the constitution.
Multiple organizations also denounced the train on national, regional and international human rights platforms. In 2020, a group of Zapatistas and Indigenous leaders from Mexico travelled to Europe to raise these and other problems with neoliberal projects like the Mayan train.
In 2023, Mayan groups, accompanied by various non-Indigenous groups, organized the El Sur Resiste caravan (“the South Resists”) travelled through seven states over 10 days to draw attention to the relationship between the train and the capitalist export-oriented development model.
Their message was clear: in a commonly used phrase among activists, the Mayan train is “not just a train, and it is certainly not Mayan.” It is a mega project that reorganizes Mayan territories in the name of “national development.”
The train, which is advertised as a tourism project, in fact plays a key role in the development of the region’s energy and agribusiness sectors. It is connected to other megaprojects, like the modernization of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which aims to connect the west and east coasts of Mexico to increase the country’s competitiveness in global markets.
Both projects are part of the larger Mesoamerica Integration and Development Project, formerly known as Plan Puebla Panamá, which promises to deliver development and well-being to local populations through the construction of massive infrastructure projects. Tren Maya thus operates on established principles of modernization theory, which posits that investing in infrastructure will eventually benefit local communities by integrating local economies into globalized capitalist markets.
The Mayan train is certainly not Mayan, as it is not a political project that emerges from Mayan communities, nor has it been carried out with appropriate participation and consent from Mayan people.
While the nationwide referendum held by AMLO on the Mayan train in 2019 suggested overwhelming support for the project, consultation with Mayan populations was widely criticized for not respecting the principle of FPIC, especially regarding accessibility to information in Indigenous languages.
Protecting local territory through global alliances
The demands of domestic groups were taken up by global human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). This international advocacy played a crucial role in bringing visibility to criticism surrounding the Mayan train project.
In June 2022, organizations submitted the case of the Mayan train to the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, a body of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) that monitors violations of the 2010 Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. The tribunal ruled that the project represented an ethnocide and ecocide, as it violated the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Rights of Nature.
The case of the Mayan train at the International Rights of Nature Tribunal is part of a global movement for the protection of the Rights of Nature, in which the Americas are leading the way.
Organizations like the Earth Law Center and the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights in the U.S., and the Environmental Law Centre in Canada, work in partnership with international organizations like GARN and Indigenous collectives who protect the Rights of Nature locally. This collaborative effort has resulted in notable achievements, including the recognition of the Klamath River in Northern California (2019) and the Magpie River in Quebec (2021) as entities with legal rights.
These international alliances facilitate exchanges among social movements, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous groups, and intellectuals involved in territorial struggles, thereby enhancing the ability of local communities to defend their territories.
The importance of human rights instruments
Civil society organizations in Mexico have denounced the government in multiple national, regional and international human rights platforms. They cite established Indigenous rights conventions like the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in independent countries, as well as the 2018 Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú Agreement). The Mexican constitution and Interamerican human rights system also provide substantial jurisprudence to back up opponents to Tren Maya.
The global movement for the Rights of Nature and instruments like the Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth reflect the process through which local groups navigate and reimagine international human rights standards. The Rights of Nature approach combines human rights discourse and Indigenous principles of reciprocity with nature, uniting diverse groups with overlapping interests and fostering innovative strategies of resistance.
In this sense, the verdict of the International Rights of Nature Tribunal regarding the Mayan train is closely related to the recognition of the legal rights of the Klamath and Magpie rivers. All three outcomes involved transnational alliances that combine human rights with Indigenous knowledge to safeguard established human rights, creating new avenues for addressing socio-environmental issues.
The case of the Mayan train serves as a powerful example of how collective resistance and global solidarity can influence and reshape the discourse on development and justice.
