Climate Litigation Cases in Latin America and the Caribbean

Two Guatemalan companies, Oxec SA and Oxec II SA, oversaw a pair of hydroelectric dam projects planned for the Cahabón River. Both companies are owned by Energy Resources Capital Corporation, registered in Panama. Local Indigenous communities reported that they were not formally consulted and expressed concern that the dams would damage their environment and violate their rights.

Farmers from a community around the Fierro Urco hill filed a protective action in the city of Loja, Ecuador, against the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, for having granted licenses, environmental registrations and certificates of non-impact on water sources for several mining concessions within the Fierro Urco hill, without having guaranteed the constitutional right to environmental consultation, the protection of water, the rights of Nature and the healthy and ecologically balanced environment of the inhabitants of this area.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Ecological Action, Union of Those Affected by Texaco (UDAPT), and members of the Miwaguno indigenous community filed a protective action before the Provincial Court of Justice of Orellana against the oil company PetroOriental SA —a subsidiary of the Chinese transnational corporations China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC)— for the burning and venting of gas in the flares of Block 14 of the Ecuadorian Amazon Region, carried out during oil extraction.

A group of nine girls from the provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana filed a protective action against the Ecuadorian State for the annual authorization granted by the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources, through the Secretariat of Hydrocarbons, to each of the oil companies that use flares for burning gas in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

A group of Colombian citizens filed a Public Action of Unconstitutionality (API) with the Constitutional Court, motivated by the national government's persistent failure to fulfill its duties regarding the delimitation, zoning, and environmental management of the territory, particularly the country's most vulnerable and important ecosystems, such as the páramos (high-altitude Andean ecosystems).

The Private Corporation for the Development of Aysén (CODESA), together with the Corporation for the Defense of Flora and Fauna (CODEFF), and Hugo Díaz Manríquez, filed a complaint for non-compliance with their public comments against the resolution that approved the Cuervo Hydroelectric Plant Project, submitted by the company Energía Austral to the Environmental Impact Assessment Service (SEIA) on August 13, 2009, through an Environmental Impact Study.

The organization Equística Defensa del Medio Ambiente (Equística Environmental Defense) filed a collective environmental protection action against the Municipality of Rosario, the Province of Santa Fe, the Municipality of Victoria, the Province of Entre Ríos, and the National Government, due to the illegal fires occurring on the chain of islands off the coast of the city of Rosario, which were seriously affecting the health of the inhabitants.

The Community Aqueduct Network of southern Santander and various peasant communities initiated legal action because the National Mining Agency (ANM) granted a license to Zurich International Trading, the company holding the coal mining project and the main company singled out by the communities, due to inconsistencies in the instruments that support the mining project.

The Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN) filed a lawsuit against Resolutions 789/2017 and 813/2017, issued by the Environmental Protection Directorate (DPA), which authorized the oil company El Trébol (PETSA) to explore and exploit oil using the fracking method in four wells located near the Llancanelo Lagoon (Ramsar Site of international importance).

The organizations Asociación Civil por la Justicia Ambiental, Foro Ecologista de Paraná and a group of children residing in the City of Rosario, represented by their parents, filed a Collective Environmental Protection Action before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation against the Province of Entre Ríos and the Municipality of the City of Victoria, for omissions and non-compliance in relation to the duty to preserve the integrity of the wetlands of the Paraná Delta, and against the Province of Santa Fe and the Province of Buenos Aires -by virtue of the