On July 6th of this year the new General Civil Protection Law was published in the Official Federal Gazette. The purpose of the new regulation is to establish at the federal level a framework regulatory body in relation to Civil Protection, creating new institutions to better provide for the allocation of resources for disasters, identify the areas of risk and create a new special crime in that regard.
The law: (i) establishes the bases that permit the identification and registration of the zones of risk in the country and the creation of the National Risks Atlas, States and Municipalities; (ii) the National Emergencies Committee is created as a mechanisms for coordinating actions in situations of emergency and disaster caused by the presence of disrupting agents that put the population, their assets and environment at risk, which will be presided over by the Ministry of the Interior; (iii) elements are incorporated for the easy and coordinated application of resources among the three levels of government, and for those purposes it is established that once the request for declaration of a disaster is presented, the Authority will have a period of up to five calendar days for its publication in the Official Federal Gazette; while the period for the governments of the states to be able to access the resources will be up to 10 calendar days from its publication in the official gazette, (iv) the construction, building and carrying out of infrastructure works and human settlements of the zone without preparing a risk analysis is considered a serious crime.
The complete text of the Law can be consulted at: http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5251070&fecha=06/06/2012