Summary:
On 2 July 2024, a complaint was filed by the public prosecutor of Antofagasta, representing the State of Chile, against Quiborax S.A., a limited liability company in the mining, agrochemical and energy sectors that produces and exports boric acid. The case concerns ulexite mining in the surface salt deposits in the Salar de Surire, located in the commune of Putre, Region of Arica and Parinacota (the ‘Salar’), and related environmental damage. This includes permanent damage to the Salar itself, alterations of runoff and flooding patterns, a loss of supporting, regulating and cultural ecosystem services, serious habitat alterations and losses, and biodiversity and environmental impacts. This resulted in continuous, cumulative, permanent and irreparable environmental damage to an iconic national and international protected area. The State sought compensation, mitigation and risk reduction measures. In doing so, it relied on Section 19 Nº 8 of the Chilean Constitution, which recognizes the right to live in an environment free of pollution, mandating the State to ensure that this right ‘is not affected and to protect the preservation of nature’, while its subsection 2° confers power to the legislator to ‘establish specific restrictions to the exercise of certain rights or freedoms to protect the environment’.
In doing so, the State cited principles of conservation and sustainable development, and Chile’s international obligations including the Convention for the Protection of the Flora, Fauna and Natural Scenic Beauty of the countries of the Americas (Washington Convention); the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RAMSAR Convention); the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Fauna; the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage; the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Fauna; and the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the UNFCCC, and the Paris Agreement as well as Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution under that framework.
The State also invoked:
the multiplier effect of climate change and the need to consider this liability for environmental damage, as it constitutes an unavoidable context that must be taken into account, given its capacity to enhance and reinforce the short, medium and long term effects of impairments, deterioration or losses inflicted on environmental components. In this sense, climate change multiplies the effect of impairments, deterioration or losses affecting the regulation or support services provided by abiotic components, such as soil or water or ecosystems themselves, especially threatening unique or singular ecosystems, valuable for their expression of biodiversity. This is precisely what the sixth report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (from now on ‘the IPCC’) on the physical basis of climate change, published in August 2021, has revealed in relation to the environment and sustainable development. It is therefore urgent, on the one hand, to determine the exact influence of climate change on this degraded ecosystem as the amount of rainwater from the summer rains increases, and, on the other hand, to strive to conserve a climatic refuge such as Surire, which sustains the biodiversity not only of the region and the country, but also of the entire world.
Status of the case:
Pending
Last updated:
12 February 2025