Mexican Lawyer Netzaí Sandoval is seeking to prosecute Felipe Calderón at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

“Mexico is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe and we must stop it. It is essential to end impunity and bring to justice before the International Criminal Court in The Hague [those] responsible for the bloodshed, violence, the fifty thousand dead and ten thousand missing,” said Mr. Sandoval in a recent interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

An official death toll has not been released in almost a year. However, an independent account from Tijuana’s Zeta magazine supports Mr. Sandoval’s figures.

 ”We are asking the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, to investigate the violence in Mexico and the humanitarian crisis that has left more displaced [people than anywhere else] in the world,” said Mr. Sandoval.

Mr. Sandoval cited Article 8 of the Rome Statute, treaty that established the ICC, in an editorial published in La Jornada earlier this year.

Also named in the complaint are drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, Secretary of National Defense Guillermo Galván Galván, Secretary of the Navy Francisco Saynez Mendoza along with other drug traffickers and government officials.   

Mexico has been the scene of several mass killings in the almost five years since Calderón first declared war on drug trafficking organizations in December 2006, many of them taking place in recent months. 

An online petition launched in May calling for the ICC to investigate Calderón has so far collected more than 9,100 signatures.