Being an Expert Witness in Mexico’s Heritage Management Process: Requirements and Issues

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Congress: Multivocal Conversations Furthering the World Archaeological Congress Agenda" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2022, the Mexican government introduced a new heritage management process, requiring the participation of expert witnesses to determine the property of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities’ knowledge, traditions, intellectual property, and heritage. Mexico’s experience with expert witnessing is mainly related to authenticity issues in cases dealing with the illicit traffic of antiquities or damage assessment. The required professional profile exists in other countries with a robust applied public and private heritage management sector. In those countries’ heritage management criminal and civil cases, expert testimony is sometimes required to assist the court. An expert witness testifies to an opinion in reports, depositions, and trials or works as a non-testifying consulting expert to assist legal professionals behind the scenes in understanding aspects of heritage management. Unlike fact witnesses, expert witnesses are allowed to provide a professional opinion(s) on questions asked by their client, typically attorneys representing one side or the other. Thus, the needed experience is absent in Mexico’s professional training. This paper discusses the ethical issues arising before an expert witness is hired by one of the involved parties and the possible problems one may encounter in working as an expert witness.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeological Congress: Multivocal Conversations Furthering the World Archaeological Congress Agenda   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36170.0