CDMX Mexico
The Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) filed an indirect amparo lawsuit against several amendments approved by the Federal Congress to the General Law on Climate Change (LGCC). Specifically, the amendments concerned: 1) the elimination of the Climate Change Fund (FCC); 2) the dissolution of the assets held in the FCC through a trust; and 3) the transfer of resource allocation for climate change mitigation and adaptation actions through the federal budget, to the detriment of the FCC.
The district judge issued a ruling denying the injunction, so CEMDA filed an appeal, which was assigned to the Seventeenth Collegiate Court for Administrative Matters of the First Circuit. On June 23, 2022, the collegiate court declared itself legally incompetent to hear the constitutional issue and ordered the case file to be sent to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
CEMDA considered that the measure diminishes the State's capacity to fulfill its obligations regarding climate change and is therefore regressive to the human right to a healthy environment.
In its complaint, CEMDA stated that the protection of human rights in the context of climate change cannot be independent of or fragmented from public policy decisions, but rather must benefit measures that incentivize climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. To this end, states must not only allocate the maximum available resources to these purposes, but also ensure that the measures implemented do not worsen or reverse the progress achieved.
The legislative modifications made to the LGCC, in particular the disappearance of the FCC, are contrary to this standard, since they limit the capacity of the Mexican State to access funds at the international level and to raise resources to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.
Furthermore, the legal guarantee that resources will be allocated progressively and independently of partisan political considerations to specific climate change mitigation and adaptation goals is being weakened. Resources that were previously allocated according to clear and specific criteria are now assigned with an extremely broad margin of discretion.
In this sense, the modifications introduced by decree, through which the FCC disappears and the allocation of resources destined for climate change adaptation and mitigation measures is transferred to a scheme with a very wide margin of discretion, constitute a measure that hinders compliance with the obligations established in the constitution in environmental matters, and, therefore, is regressive to the human right to a healthy environment.
- Mexican Center for Environmental Law, AC
- Congress of the Union (Legislative Branch)
- President of the Republic
Standards
- Paris Agreement
- Political Constitution of the United Mexican States ( human right to a healthy environment and legal security in its aspect of legitimate expectation)
- General Law on Climate Change
Principles :
- Principle of non-regression