Ecuador court case: oil spill in the San Rafael Waterfall

Summary

On April 30 2020, thirty two indigenous and civil society groups filed an action in the provincial court of Orellana in Ecuador, seeking protection of human rights and precautionary measures against the national oil company of Ecuador and the Ecuadorian government, due to the rupture of oil pipelines near the San Rafael Waterfall, spilling approximately fifteen thousand barrels of crude oil and gasoline into the Coca and Napo rivers.

The plaintiffs are members of indigenous communities who claimed that the oil spill caused irreparable damage to one hundred and nine ancestral communities. As Indigenous peoples, they argued that their constitutional rights to life, water, food, health, territory, the environment, and to information have been violated, and that the impact of the oil spill violates the rights recognized to Nature by Article 71 of the Ecuadorian constitution. In October 2020, the provincial court denied the action, determining that “there was no evidence of a violation of rights.” The subsequent appeal was also rejected in March 2021.

In April 2021, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador accepted the case to analyze the alleged impact on the rights to a healthy environment and health of ancestral communities, and the rights of nature.

The action was filed against the national oil company of Ecuador (Petroecuador); the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline Company (OCP); the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources; the Ministry of the Environment; the Ministry of Public Health; and the Attorney General’s Office.