The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Friday condemned Peru for violating the right of residents of a mining town in the Andes to a “healthy environment”, in a ruling described as “historic” by the plaintiffs.
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In its judgment, the Court criticizes the Peruvian State for “the violation of the rights to a healthy environment, to health, to personal integrity, to a dignified life, to access to information, to political participation , judicial guarantees and judicial protection to the detriment of the 80 victims of the case.
La Oroya, located 175 km east of Lima and at an altitude of 3,750 m, was ranked in 2006 among the ten most polluted cities in the world due to the activities of a metallurgical complex which for years processed copper, zinc, lead, silver, gold and even selenium from neighboring mines.
The inhabitants of this city of 20,000 inhabitants have suffered for decades from chronic exposure to heavy metals, according to the plaintiffs who seized the Inter-American Court, an institution emanating from the Organization of American States (OAS), on the advice of NGOs.
For the Court, based in Costa Rica, “the right to a healthy environment constitutes a universal interest and a fundamental right for the existence of humanity”, and the activities of the La Oroya metallurgical complex (CMLO) have put it to bad.
According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in 2013, 97% of children in La Oroya aged six months to six years and 98% of those aged seven to twelve years had high levels of lead in the body. blood.
The Court ordered Peru to carry out a diagnosis of the contamination of the air, water and soil in the city, to provide free medical care to the victims and to bring the regulations into conformity with the admissible standards for lead, sulfur dioxide, arsenic or mercury, among other measures.
The Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), which advised the 17 La Oroya families who petitioned the Court, described the ruling as “historic,” saying it constitutes “an essential precedent for the protection of the right to a healthy environment throughout the American continent.