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Reuters
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Latin America court calls for unified climate action as legal fights mount
SANTIAGO, July 3 (Reuters) - Member states must cooperate to tackle climate change and not take actions that set back environmental protections, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) said in a non-binding advisory opinion issued on Thursday. The court holds jurisdiction over 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries and the advisory opinion, requested by Colombia and Chile, said that countries must also regulate and monitor corporate activities, especially those that generate greenhouse gases. The opinion also said companies must adopt "effective" measures to combat climate change and states should discourage "greenwashing" and undue corporate influence in politics and regulations related to climate change. States must also pass legislation for companies to act with "due diligence when it comes to human rights and climate change along their value chain." States must also set binding GHG emission mitigation goals that "are as ambitious as possible" with concrete time frames. Cooperation must go beyond transboundary harm, the opinion said, and should go beyond mitigation and adaptation and cover all necessary measures to comprehensively respond to the climate emergency. Maria Antonia Tigre, director of global climate change litigation at the Sabin Center at Columbia Law School, said that many countries rely on these opinions as precedent, even though they're non-binding. "The (IACHR) is a little bit of a special case because it's highly influential in domestic courts," Tigre said, adding that regional supreme courts often cite IACHR opinions. "The other aspect is if there is a contentious case on the topic, it will likely follow what's said in the advisory opinion," she said, citing a 2024 IACHR as an example. In 2024, the IACHR ordered Peru to pay damages to a mining town, a decision that followed the 2017 interpretation of an 2017 advisory opinion the court issued that stated that a healthy environment was a human right. The ruling builds on a global wave of climate litigation as countries, organizations and individuals are increasingly turning to courts for climate action. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights said climate inaction violates human rights and a South Korean court said that the country's climate change law does not effectively shield future generations. Vanuatu has also urged the top United Nations court to recognize the harm caused by climate change in its judgment on the legal obligation of countries to fight it and address the consequences of contributing to global warming. The ruling is expected this year. The IACHR opinion noted that climate litigation is an "emerging field" but also an increasingly essential tool for holding states and companies accountable for climate change and obligations.
Washington Post
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Latin America's top human rights court says states have duty to act on climate crisis
BOGOTA, Colombia — The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Thursday issued a landmark advisory opinion linking governments' human rights obligations to their responsibility to address the threat of climate change — a move expected to shape policy and litigation across Latin America and the Caribbean . The opinion is the first of its kind from the region's top human rights tribunal and responds to a 2023 request from Colombia and Chile. It says states have a duty under international law to prevent, mitigate and remedy environmental harm that threatens human rights, including through laws, policies and actions aimed at curbing climate change.
CTV News
11-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Cardinal with close ties to Pope Leo XIV travels to Canada to support peaceful G7 activists
A Peruvian cardinal who worked closely with Pope Leo XIV for years will be stopping in Calgary to support peaceful demonstrators as world leaders gather next week for the G7 summit in Alberta. Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, 81, hopes to help draw attention to what he calls an 'ecological debt' crisis. While Barreto doesn't plan to join protests, he said he will be supporting peaceful activists' call for change. According to Barreto and organizers from Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada, the group that invited the cardinal to Canada, ecological debt refers to the debt owed to poorer nations and Indigenous communities resulting from damage caused by some companies from developed countries like Canada. This damage includes oil spills and pollution from mines. Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada, the official humanitarian aid agency of the Canadian Catholic Church, invited the cardinal to support peaceful activists in their campaign to call on G7 world leaders to prioritize the protection of the planet and poor communities. Ahead of a speech before dozens of people at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toronto on Monday, Barreto spoke with through an interpreter about ecological debt. 'It's a very large injustice that the World Bank recognizes,' the Spanish-speaking cardinal said. He pointed to a World Bank 2023 debt report that found developing countries spent a record US$1.4 trillion servicing their foreign debt, as interest costs soared to a 20-year high of $406 billion. For many countries, this move would cut budgets in areas such as health and education. Barreto hopes developed countries like Canada will recognize their ecological debt to poorer countries. He and other environmental advocates are calling on Canada and other countries to cancel 'unjust and unsustainable debts' and help reform the global financial system. 'My hope, which is the hope of the church, is that the leaders of the northern rich countries will assume their responsibility in this situation,' he said. 'They have a really clear opportunity here to have a change in mentality towards debt.' Direction of Leo papacy Barreto, a Jesuit like Pope Francis, says he, Leo and others in the Catholic Church hope to continue Francis's legacy of emphasizing care for the marginalized and environment. While he didn't vote in the conclave last month — Barreto is older than the 80-year-old cutoff — he said he participated in meetings with cardinals leading up to Leo's election, in which they 'insisted' that the new pope must continue the same path as Francis of looking after the Earth. Cardinal's plans in Calgary The cardinal will be a guest of honour at the G7 Jubilee People's Forum in Calgary from June 12 to 15 before the summit in Kananaskis. Activists and faith communities from across Canada and around the world will gather and participate in talks about ecological debt during the forum. Barreto, metropolitan archbishop emeritus of Huancayo, Peru, is known for his advocacy for the environment and poor in Peru and Latin America. Francis made Barreto a cardinal in 2018. According to The College of Cardinals Report, a website featuring profiles of cardinals compiled by independent Catholic journalists and researchers, Barreto is also known for his 'outspoken generally liberal views on national politics,' even facing death threats for speaking out against a smelter causing pollution that threatened the health of people in the Andes Mountains.
