The Inter-American Court of Human Rights outlined in its Advisory Opinion No. 32 (OC-32), released on July 3, 2025, how human rights must be ensured in the face of the climate emergency. This landmark opinion sets the course for the protection of both valuable ecosystems and the rights of people in Latin America -a region deeply affected by hosting significant reserves of minerals increasingly demanded by the global energy transition.

Following more than 150 oral interventions and over 260 written submissions, OC-32 provides legal tools to safeguard human rights throughout the minerals value chain, while ensuring the integrity of ecosystems from a Latin American perspective. Its recognition of the Rights of Nature offers a key framework for rethinking how to manage the region’s mineral wealth, especially considering that the region holds more than 50% of global lithium reserves and 40% of copper reserves.

Equally important, the Court reaffirms the interdependence between democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights within the Inter-American system. It also emphasizes the importance of access rights, and highlights the situation of environmental, climate and human rights defenders, in alignment with the Escazú Agreement. This is especially relevant in what is currently the most dangerous region in the world for defending nature.

In a context of climate denialism promoted by political leaderships that reject the scientific consensus on human-dirven climate change, the OC-32 offers a vital roadmap for urging States to meet their climate commitments through a human rights-based approach.

At the Andean Wetlands Alliance, we view this Advisory Opinion with hope, as a key tool to help ensure the rights of communities who have inhabited these wetlands for generations and to protect these vital ecosystems.

Read the Andean Wetlands Alliance’s full analysis here.

Reactions from Members of the Andean Wetlands Alliance to Advisory Opinion No. 32 of the IACHR

Pía Marchegiani, Deputy Executive Director, Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Argentina):
“In a context where discussions on critical minerals are increasingly shaped by security and military interests, and unilateral or bilateral agendas from the Global North seek to control mineral supply chains, the Inter-American Court has taken a clear, strategic step in defining how the balance must be struck: placing human rights and nature at the center. Only in this way can we move forward toward justice and equity, as proposed by the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Minerals.”

Ricardo Frez, Director, ONG Defensa Ambiental (Chile):
“This unprecedented recognition of nature as a rights-bearing subject marks a shift toward ecocentric approaches in international human rights law. It is especially significant amid the growing—and often irreversible—impacts of mining for critical minerals like lithium and copper in the Global South. The Court affirms the autonomous protection of nature, not only as a means to secure human rights, but as an end in itself. It reinforces States’ obligations to prevent irreparable climate and environmental damage. In a context where the energy transition risks replicating extractivist models, this advisory opinion provides crucial normative tools to defend territories and life.”

Vivian Lagrava Flores, Empodérate, Human Rights Collective (Bolivia):
“Although communities may not be familiar with technical terms like climate, energy transition, and so on, they have welcomed with hope the fact that Advisory Opinion 32/25 places greater obligations on States. Laws, constitutions, and human rights standards are being ignored, while all kinds of impacts are overlooked. Wetlands—especially freshwater bofedales—are nature’s miracle that sustains our way of life and are essential for mitigating climate change. Yet they are being destroyed by extractivism. The Bolivian State must grasp the magnitude of its obligations.”

Ezio Costa Cordella, FIMA NGO (Chile)
“The concept of a just transition appears in several parts of the advisory opinion issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. There is a specific and explicit mention of this type of transition, and the Court refers to the obligation of States to uphold this principle when developing climate policies and strategies. This means they must avoid deepening situations of multidimensional poverty and instead assess how a transition will affect a given territory and the people who live there—including, of course, the workers in industries undergoing change. In this sense, it is important to understand that the ecological transition is not limited to policy measures; it also concerns how a range of social systems, including those of production and consumption, will adapt to the new climate and environmental reality. In this process—from the present state of affairs to what will emerge as a result of this new environmental condition—we must ensure that no further violations of human rights occur. On the contrary, we should create conditions that lead to better protection and fairer distribution of those rights.”

Oscar Campanini, CEDIB (Bolivia)
“The advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court is an enormously important reinforcement of civil society’s defense of the environment, water, Indigenous peoples’ territories, and life itself—a defense that benefits not just specific groups but is, in fact, the only way to ensure our survival as a species. In the case of the high Andean plateau, this opinion supports the struggles of communities defending water and wetlands against growing pressure from critical mineral extraction projects such as lithium.”

Verónica Gostissa – Asamblea PUCARA (Argentina)
“We are at a turning point for climate justice and human rights. The Inter-American Court now recognizes the autonomous right to a healthy climate. In regions like northwest Argentina—where ecosystems of high ecological value, such as high Andean wetlands, coexist with intense extractive pressures from lithium mining—this decision directly challenges the current mining and energy model. This legal milestone reinforces a truth that communities and peoples have long upheld: if it dries up rivers, it’s not an energy transition. And there can be no true transition without environmental justice.”