Constitutional Court
Center of Studies for Social Justice “Tierra Digna”
The President; The Ministry of the Interior; and others
Chocó is a district in Colombia known as one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. It hosts four humid and tropical ecosystems, several national parks and the Atrato River Basin, through which three rivers (the Atrato, Baudó and San Juan) run. These three rivers contain valuable minerals, play important roles in navigability and are essential for local agriculture. Along the Atrato River live Afro-descendent and indigenous peoples who have depended on the ecosystem as a source of sustenance and culture for centuries. Descendants of mestizo migrants have also come to depend on the river.
As a result of exploitative mining and logging practices conducted over several years, the Atrato River Basin area suffered extensive damage. Heavy machinery destroyed the riverbed, while indiscriminate amounts of cyanide, mercury and other toxic substances infiltrated the waters and chemical vapors polluted the air. Various problems emerged as a result of this environmental damage, including the poisoning and in some cases death of children and adults. Additionally, species that depended on the river became endangered and the way of life of the people of Chocó was threatened.
The plaintiff – an NGO representing members of the Afro-descendent, indigenous and mestizo migrant communities – filed a tutela action (a special injunction to protect violated or threatened fundamental rights) alleging violations of, among other things, their constitutional rights to life, health, water, food security and a healthy environment. The plaintiff asked that the Court protect those rights and issue orders that would set forth structural solutions to the crisis occurring in the Atrato River Basin and its surroundings. Regarding the R2HE, the plaintiff argued that state authorities’ failure to address mining in the basin resulted in threats to community members’ access to food and water, dangers to their health and a risk of displacement that would sever their cultural ties.
The Court determined that the defendants had seriously violated the communities’ constitutional rights to, among other things, life, health, water, food security and a healthy environment by failing to adequately respond to the many problems faced in the basin as a result of illegal mining. It came to this conclusion by acknowledging the various negative impacts that the communities suffered due to mining, including loss of their means of subsistence, serious threats to their cultural fabric posed by impending displacement and harm to their health caused by pollution. Consequently, the Court ordered that the defendants adopt and implement a vast set of measures aimed at restoring and protecting the basin. Moreover, the Court recognized the basin as holding rights of its own, which the government was tasked with guarding and representing in collaboration with the communities that depended on it.