## Facts

- Twenty-five minors and young adults (ages 7–25) from Colombian cities at high climate risk filed a constitutional rights action seeking protection from harms linked to accelerating deforestation in the Colombian Amazon.
- They alleged that rising deforestation and resulting greenhouse-gas emissions were violating or imminently threatening their fundamental rights to life, health, water, food, human dignity, and a healthy environment.
- Petitioners relied on official monitoring data indicating sharp increases in deforestation, with the Amazon identified as the country’s most affected region and a major source of emissions.
- Petitioners asserted the government was failing to meet binding national and international commitments to reduce deforestation and emissions, including statutory targets and climate-related obligations.
- A lower court dismissed the action on procedural grounds, reasoning that the dispute concerned collective environmental rights better addressed through a collective action rather than a constitutional rights action.
- Petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice (Civil Chamber), which reviewed both procedural admissibility and the merits.

## Issues

1. Whether a constitutional rights action is procedurally available when the alleged harm involves collective environmental interests but is claimed to threaten individual fundamental rights.
2. Whether inadequate state action to curb Amazon deforestation violates or imminently threatens petitioners’ fundamental rights, including interests attributable to future generations.
3. Whether the Colombian Amazon may be recognized as a rights-bearing entity entitled to protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration, and what remedies follow.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal and held the constitutional rights action was admissible because impairment of collective environmental interests can concurrently impair individual fundamental rights.
- The Court found deforestation in the Colombian Amazon created imminent and serious harm threatening petitioners’ fundamental rights to life, health, minimum subsistence, freedom, and human dignity, closely linked to environmental conditions.
- The Court granted relief and recognized the Colombian Amazon as a rights-bearing entity entitled to protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration.
- The Court ordered national authorities to formulate and implement a short-, medium-, and long-term plan to reduce Amazon deforestation and address climate-related impacts.
- The Court directed creation of an “intergenerational pact for the life of the Colombian Amazon,” requiring participation from youth petitioners and relevant communities and organizations.
- The Court required coordinated measures by national and territorial authorities to improve land-use planning, monitoring, and enforcement against drivers of deforestation.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional rights action may proceed, despite overlap with collective environmental interests, when (i) there is a direct connection to fundamental rights, (ii) plaintiffs are directly affected, (iii) the threat is real and imminent, and (iv) judicial orders aim to restore fundamental rights even if collective interests also benefit.
- Fundamental rights such as life, health, minimum subsistence, freedom, and human dignity are materially dependent on environmental and ecosystem integrity; severe environmental degradation can constitute a justiciable threat to those rights.
- Intergenerational equity supports judicial protection where present environmental destruction foreseeably burdens younger persons and those not yet born; state duties limit present conduct to prevent foreseeable grave harm.
- Courts may recognize a vital ecosystem as a rights-bearing entity, imposing affirmative duties on state and territorial authorities to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore it.
- Statutory and international climate-related commitments may inform the scope and content of constitutional duties to prevent environmental harm and to act with due diligence against deforestation.

## Conclusion

The Court treated Amazon deforestation as a present, imminent threat to youths’ fundamental rights, held a constitutional rights action procedurally proper, recognized the Amazon as a rights-bearing entity, and issued structural orders requiring coordinated planning and participatory measures to reduce deforestation and protect both present and future generations.


Future Generations v. Ministry of Env't & Sustainable Dev., STC 4360-2018 (Colom. Sup. Ct. Apr. 5, 2018)