Amicus Curiae Brief

The brief provides legal analysis to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding Colombia's request for an advisory opinion on the impact of large-scale projects on the marine environment, specifically in the Greater Caribbean Region. It asserts that state jurisdiction extends to acts or omissions with foreseeable extraterritorial effects and advocates for the 'principle of systemic integration' to align human rights protections with international environmental standards.

• State Parties to the American Convention on Human Rights are obligated to exercise due diligence to ensure their acts and omissions do not cause environmental harm that violates the human rights of people outside their own borders.
• Extraterritorial human rights obligations are triggered in three specific situations: when a state exercises authority or effective control, when its acts or omissions have foreseeable effects on rights, or when the state can exercise decisive influence to realize rights extraterritorially.
• The 'principle of systemic integration', codified in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, allows for the interpretation of human rights obligations by referencing the broader normative environment of international environmental law.
• Customary international law establishes a binding obligation for states to prevent significant transboundary environmental harm, a principle reinforced by the 1972 Stockholm Declaration and the 1992 Rio Declaration.
• There is a customary international law requirement for states to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) when a proposed activity risks significant adverse transboundary impacts, particularly on shared resources.
• A state's failure to perform an adequate EIA for an activity with significant adverse transboundary effects constitutes a breach of international environmental law; if this harm impairs human rights, it establishes state responsibility for those human rights violations.
• International environmental standards and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) can serve as benchmarks to determine the normative content of the right to life and as indicators for the progressive realization of the right to a healthy environment.

APA

Center for International Environmental Law (2017). Amicus Curiae Brief. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CIEL-VLS-Amicus-brief-to-IACtHRs-18-JAN-2017.pdf

Chicago

Center for International Environmental Law. Amicus Curiae Brief. 2017. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CIEL-VLS-Amicus-brief-to-IACtHRs-18-JAN-2017.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Center for International Environmental Law |title=Amicus Curiae Brief |date=18 January 2017 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CIEL-VLS-Amicus-brief-to-IACtHRs-18-JAN-2017.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centerforinternationalenvironmentallaw2017amicus, author = {{Center for International Environmental Law}}, title = {{Amicus Curiae Brief}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2017}, month = jan, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CIEL-VLS-Amicus-brief-to-IACtHRs-18-JAN-2017.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }