On Sunday, June 1, 2025, Mexican voters headed to the polls for the first time to vote for judicial officials—one of many changes that were the result of the 2024 constitutional reform. The constitutional reform marked a historic turning point for Mexico’s justice system. In three years, all federal and local judges will be replaced through a popular vote system, unique in the Western Hemisphere.
In this context, authors Javier Martín Reyes and Saul López Noriega coordinated the creation of a new book The Judicial Storm: Implications of the 2024 Reform in Mexico (2025) to explore the contents and impacts of the reform. The authors explain legal changes and provide thoughtful reflections on what they might mean for the rule of law, democratic governance, and access to justice in Mexico. The Georgetown Americas Institute is pleased to host Martín Reyes and López Noriega, along with Héctor Aguilar Camín, director of Nexos, and Daniel Quintanilla, author of one of the book’s chapters, for a presentation of the book and broad discussion on the recent judicial reform in Mexico. The conversation will be moderated by GAI Founding Director Alejandro Werner.
This conversation will take place in Spanish with no interpretation.
Featuring
Javier Martín Reyes is the co-coordinator of The Judicial Storm: Implications of the 2024 Reform in Mexico (2025). He is a nonresident scholar at the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He is also a full-time researcher at the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His research focuses on the Mexican judicial system, particularly constitutional and electoral reforms, and the legal challenges posed by new technologies. He examines how these areas intersect and shape the future of governance and democracy.
Daniel Quintanilla is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. He is also the author of the chapter “Beyond the Judicial Election: The New Mexican State,” in the book The Judicial Storm: Implications of the 2024 Reform in Mexico (2025). His chapter concludes the book, linking judicial reform with other institutional changes driven by the current populist government in Mexico, including preventive detention and militarization.
Héctor Aguilar Camín is a Mexican writer, journalist, historian, and director of Nexos magazine. Aguilar Camín is also an editor of the book The Judicial Storm: Implications of the 2024 Reform in Mexico (2025). Aguilar Camín graduated from the Ibero-American University with a bachelor's degree in information sciences and received a doctoral degree in history from El Colegio de México. In 1986, he received Mexico's Cultural Journalism National Award. As a journalist, he has written for La Jornada (which he also co-edited), Unomásuno, and currently for Milenio. He edited Nexos and hosted Zona abierta, a weekly current-affairs show on national television. He has worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and was editorial director of literary magazine Cal y Arena.
Saul López Noriega is the co-coordinator of The Judicial Storm: Implications of the 2024 Reform in Mexico (2025) and author of two chapters of the book. He holds a law degree from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and a doctorate in political philosophy and constitutional law from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), with a magna cum laude distinction. He coordinates the Judicial Monitor project, which aims to empirically study the behavior of Supreme Court justices in Mexico. He has published widely and is a regular contributor, covering legal and political topics, to various publications and opinion pieces in media outlets such as Es la hora de opinar (ForoTV). He is currently a full-time professor and researcher at the School of Government and Public Transformation at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Alejandro Werner is the founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute and a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that appointment, he was undersecretary of finance and public credit in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and held several positions in that ministry and the Central Bank. He also taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in economics from ITAM.