The jurisdictional protection of the environment and collective processes in Peru

Abstract

The right to a healthy environment, unlike other fundamental rights, counts and demands to be protected in various dimensions: individual, collective, and intergenerational, as an autonomous right and as an essential right for the realization of other fundamental rights. However, the Peruvian civil legal system, and in general, only protects the environment in its individual dimension through the negatory action and extra-contractual civil liability, thus offering partial, insufficient, and incomplete protection, contrary to the jurisprudence developed by the Court IDH and countries like Colombia and Mexico. The lack of procedural instruments that protect the environment in its collective and intergenerational dimension generates a violation of the right to judicial protection because litigants cannot access justice, obtain a reasoned and legally grounded resolution, and neither the effectiveness of their right. The collective dimension of the environment demands a new procedural instrument for environmental protection, not provided for in the CPC, which guarantees actions for prevention, restoration, and repair of the environment.