Legal assemblages and normative ambiguity: constitutional authority tensions in the Declaration of GMO-Free Crop Zones in Yucatán, Mexico

Abstract

This article examines the legal dispute arising from the enactment of Decree 418/2016, through which the government of the state of Yucatán declared its territory a GMO-free zone with respect to genetically modified crop cultivation. The decree was subsequently invalidated by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) in Constitutional Controversy 233/2016, based on a strict construction of the constitutional principle of regulatory competence, whereby exclusive authority in matters of biosafety was attributed to the federal government, thereby subordinating subnational regulatory initiatives. Through a documentary analysis and grounded in a sociolegal perspective informed by the study of sociotechnical controversies, the article contends that the legal category of “GMO-free zones”—as nominally established under Article 90 of the Law on Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (LBOGM)—is marked by normative ambiguity and implementation gaps. The SCJN’s reasoning failed to consider the socio-economic interests of local stakeholders, particularly within the apiculture sector, whose productive practices have been adversely impacted by the spatial and ecological coexistence with transgenic crops. It is argued that legal systems must be understood as heterogeneous assemblages of actors, technologies, and forms of knowledge, requiring analytical frameworks capable of addressing the political, territorial, and technoscientific dimensions of contemporary regulatory disputes.