UCLA Law Clinics File Amicus Brief in Herrera Carrion v. Ministry of the Environment
The Human Rights Litigation Clinic and the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA School of Law have filed an amicus brief with the Constitutional Court of Ecuador on behalf of a group of law professors and international legal scholars: Kate Mackintosh of UCLA Law, Sarah Dorman at Northwestern, Camilo Sanchez at the University of Virginia, Elisabeth Ward at DePaul University College of Law, David Sloss at Santa Clara School of Law, and Britton Schwartz also at Santa Clara School of Law. As amici curiae, these scholars offer their expertise in international law, human rights, and environmental issues to help the Court decide a central issue in the case of Herrera Carrion v. Ministry of the Environment.
Known as the Mecheros case (“the flares”), the case originates with a group of nine girls living in the Ecuadorian Amazon who have waged a years-long litigation campaign to force the extinguishing of more than 400 gas flares, some of them less than 100 meters from their homes. The girls are represented by UDAPT, an indigenous-led Ecuadorian advocacy group with a robust history of opposing locally harmful oil and gas operations. The scholars call on the Court to provide long-overdue remedies for noncompliance with a court’s judgment and to hold the State and national oil companies accountable for ongoing violations of human and environmental rights.