Abstract

PEREZ CABALLERO, Jesús. The plurality of armed factions versus the war paradigm: a proposed interpretative framework for organised crime in México. Rev. Crim. [online]. 2025, vol.67, n.1, pp.129-145.  Epub Apr 19, 2025. ISSN 1794-3108.  https://doi.org/10.47741/17943108.634.

This reflective article proposes an interpretative framework for understanding the nature of non-state actors as part of collective violence in Mexico. Based on a doctrinal review of the literature on international criminal law and the laws of war, as well as on collective violence in the country, newspaper sources and personal experience in places such as Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Guerrero, a negative answer is given to the question of whether Mexico currently has one or more non-international armed conflicts (CANI). Subsequently, the main hypothesis of this article is explained, namely that in Mexico there is a multiplicity of armed factions, which are inherently plural in the way they present themselves (plurality of criminal brands), their internal organisation and their links with other situations that are irreducible under international humanitarian law (IHL), although quantitatively there may be analogies between a war context and other situations of collective violence. After establishing the idea of armed faction and the modulation of its state links as part of this interpretative framework for Mexico, this paper recapitulates the above and concludes on the possibility of combining different analyses of armed faction.

Keywords : Crime; international humanitarian law; war; violence; Mexico.

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