Climate Litigation Cases in Latin America and the Caribbean

In May 2022, Ecuadorian environmental defenders, led by lawyer Yaku Pérez, and communities in the Quimsacocha moorland area promoted a protective action against the Canadian mining company Dundee Precious Metals, requesting a prior, free and informed consultation with the communities of the area regarding the Loma Larga mining project, due to prospecting, exploration and exploitation activities of metallic mining in water sources, moorlands, wetlands, forests and in all the recharge and water regulation zones of the Quimsacocha hydrological system.

On April 26, 2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian State before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This action was brought by the Association of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku, denouncing the unauthorized entry of the Argentine company Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC) and the Ecuadorian security forces into their territory between 2002 and 2003.

On May 17, 2018, community members from the Molleturo parish in the province of Azuay filed a protective action for the violation of their constitutional rights, including the right to due process and to prior, free, and informed consultation. They were supported by the Federation of Indigenous and Peasant Organizations of Azuay (FOA), the Union of Defenders of Water and Nature (UNAGUA), and the Church of Cuenca.

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.

In 2021, several indigenous organizations promoted an action of unconstitutionality, seeking to expel from the Ecuadorian legal system Decree No. 95, known as "the oil decree", which proposes a transitional public policy in which the control and management of strategic sectors pass from the hands of the State to private capital, through participation contracts.

In 2021, a group of indigenous organizations promoted an action of unconstitutionality seeking to expel from the Ecuadorian legal system Decree No. 151, known as the megamining decree, which proposes a more lax policy of permissiveness for the environmental and water authorization of medium and large scale mining projects in Andean and Amazonian territories within Ecuadorian territory, combined with the concept of “strategic project” related to the sovereignty over natural resources of the Ecuadorian government.

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.

In 2018, the Mayor of the Cotacachi canton and the Judicial Attorney of the Municipality of Cotacachi filed a protective action against the Minister of the Environment and the General Manager of the National Mining Company of Ecuador (ENAMI EP), for the granting of the environmental registration of the Río Magdalena Mining Project (made up of two concessions), which would allow the mining of metallic minerals within the Los Cedros Protected Forest, which is declared as an “area of Protected Forest and Vegetation”.

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.

In 2013, the Yasunidos collective and others launched a referendum initiative to allow citizens to decide whether the oil in Block 43-ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini) should remain indefinitely beneath Yasuní National Park. The process was plagued by administrative disputes related to signature validation and the actions of electoral authorities, preventing the referendum from taking place for nearly a decade.