A small mountain community in the Peruvian Andes has won a victory that could echo across Latin America.
In a historic ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has charged the Peruvian government with violating its people’s right to a healthy environment by allowing a century-old metal smelter to contaminate the community of La Oroya. In its scathing decision, the Court found that the government “was aware of these high levels of contamination” yet chose not to take appropriate actions to prevent it, “nor to provide care for persons who had acquired diseases” caused by the pollution.
La Oroya is perched over 12,000 feet high in the Andes along the banks of the River Mantaro – a river so polluted with lead and arsenic that one local called it “a dead river.” Huge swaths of the surrounding mountains have been cleaved for mining, and pollution from the smelter…
Read the full article originally published at earthjustice.org.