A/HRC/11/7/Add.2 page 6 Especially Women and Children, and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants By Land, Sea and Air, both supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, ratified on 4 May and 4 March 2003, respectively; the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified on 11 April 2005; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified on 17 December 2007, and the Optional Protocol to the above Convention, ratified on 17 December 2007; and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, ratified on 18 March 2008. 11. Mexico has been one of the main promoters of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families since the Government submitted the issue for discussion to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1980. The Government of Mexico signed the Convention on 22 May 1991 and ratified it on 8 March 1999. The Convention was promulgated in Mexico’s Diario Oficial de la Federación on 13 August 1999 and entered into force on 1 July 2003. 12. Upon ratifying the Convention, Mexico stated in an interpretative declaration that it reaffirmed its political will to ensure international protection of the rights of all migrant workers in accordance with the Convention. It submitted its first periodic report for consideration by the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW/C/MEX/1), in accordance with the provisional guidelines regarding the form and content of initial reports to be submitted by States Parties under article 73 of the Convention, adopted by the Committee at its informal meeting in October 2004. 13. Article 133 of the Constitution of the United Mexican States establishes that international treaties concluded by the President of the Republic, with the approval of the Senate, shall, together with the Constitution itself and the laws of the Congress of the Union, be the supreme law of the nation. Accordingly, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families forms part of domestic legislation and may be the basis and foundation of any legal action. B. Federal legal framework 14. Despite Mexico’s leadership role at the international level in promoting a human rights framework for the protection of migrants, there remain significant gaps in its domestic legal framework, existing laws and practice. Although Mexico is a party to the Convention, it only recently - on 16 April 2008, subsequent to the Special Rapporteur’s visit - accepted the competency of the Committee on Migrant Workers to receive individual communications. This limits the Committee to review the practice of the Government of Mexico with regard to the protection of the rights of migrants. In its report to the Committee on Migrant Workers in 2006, the Government of Mexico recognized that absolute respect for the human rights of migrants is still a challenge for the country, since the existence of a legal framework envisaging strict respect for those rights does not per se guarantee the implementation of the Convention. 15. The federal legal framework regarding migration is provided by the Constitution of the United Mexican States (1917). Additionally, the General Population Act (1974) and its