Climate Litigation Cases in Latin America and the Caribbean

Twenty-five young people from seventeen cities and municipalities in Colombia, with the support of the Center for Studies on Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia), filed a tutela action against the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia; the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; Regional Autonomous Corporations with jurisdiction in the Amazon; and fourteen municipalities in the Amazon that concentrate the highest percentage of deforestation in this region, to stop deforestation in the Amazon r

This is a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) with a request for precautionary measures filed by the Communist Party of Brazil, Rede Sustentabilidade (REDE), the Green Party, and the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), seeking to have Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Law 12.709/2024 of the state of Mato Grosso declared unconstitutional.

This is a Public Civil Action (PCA) with a request for urgent precautionary measures filed by the Arayara International Institute of Education and Culture against the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), and the Federal Government. This action is part of a set of six PCAs filed against the 4th Permanent Bidding Cycle for oil exploration blocks.

This Action for Non-Compliance with a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) was filed by the Rede Sustentabilidade party against CONAMA Resolutions 500/2020 and 499/2020. The first repealed regulations governing irrigation permits and defining Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) in reservoirs, mangroves, and sandbanks; the second modified the permitting process for burning waste in rotary kilns.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) promoted a Public Civil Action (ACP) lawsuit with a request for urgent protection, against Sebastião da Costa Mariano, for the illegal deforestation of 903.22 hectares of native forest in the municipality of Boca do Acre/AM, within the "Buen Lugar Farmland", a public area of the Union.

This is a Public Civil Action (ACP), with a request for precautionary measures, filed by the organizations Socio-Environmental Institute, Greenpeace Brazil and Brazilian Association of Members of the Public Ministry of the Environment (ABRAMPA, for its acronym in Portuguese), and the Federal Government, seeking the declaration of nullity of the Interpretative Resolution 7036900/2020 of IBAMA, which eliminated the need for authorization issued by the agency for the export of timber products and by-products of native species.

The Public Prosecutor's Office of Mato Grosso filed a civil lawsuit against Nelson Naború Yabuta for the deforestation of native trees on his private property, located within a protected area of the Juara community in Mato Grosso. The case was heard by a district court in Juara, which ordered the defendant to pay 20 million reais in compensation for environmental damage and to submit a technical project called "PRAD" to recover the degraded area, restoring the original conditions of the vegetation affected by the illegal deforestation.

Political parties filed two Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality by Omission (ADIO 59 and ADIO 60, for their acronym in Portuguese) before the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to have the omission of the Union in relation to the paralysis of the Amazon Fund recognized.

Indigenous and environmental organizations filed a Public Civil Action against the Union, the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) and the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (IBAMA), for issuing public notice number 130/2021, which authorizes the hiring of a company to design and build the expansion of the BR-364 highway that would connect the Cruzeiro do Sul section, in Acre, Brazil to a point on the border between Brazil and Peru and that would cross the Serra do Divisor National Park.

The Institute of Amazonian Studies (IEA) filed a public climate civil action with the Federal Court of Curitiba, Paraná, against the Federal Union (Brazilian Federal Government), for non-compliance with the climate goals on the reduction of deforestation in the Amazon, established in the Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm, for its acronym in Portuguese), -one of the instruments of the National Climate Change Policy of Brazil-, which correspond to the reduction by the year 2020, of 80% of the average of the annual