It’s the first time an international court has held a nation responsible for environmental impacts generated by the private sector
On March 22, the Inter-American Human Rights Court found the State of Peru responsible for violating the rights of residents of the Andean town of La Oroya, who had been exposed to decades of toxic emissions from a metallurgical complex located in the heart of the town.
In 2006, 80 residents of La Oroya filed legal action in the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, claiming that the State of Peru has never taken adequate action to protect the residents’ rights to a healthy environment. Nearly 20 years later, the court has finally spoken.
“How great is our God!,” proclaimed Yolanda Zurita, a longtime resident and activist for environmental health in La Oroya. “This ruling is very broad. Apart from reclaiming our right to environmental and human health, it recognizes us as citizens and aims to make the State and the private sector recognize our right to information, political participation and environmental activism.”
Read the full Presbyterian News Service Article
The work of the Presbyterian Hunger Program is possible thanks to your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing.
You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.
