Five impoverished residents of Phiri in Soweto filed a legal action against the City of Johannesburg, the water provider company wholly owned by the City, and the Ministry of Water Affairs and Forestry, challenging the legality of Operation Gcin’amanzi–a project the City of Johannesburg piloted in Phiri in early 2004 to address the severe problem …Read more

In May 2007, the State of Panama, without community consultation, granted a concession for the construction of a hydroelectric dam within the traditional lands of an indigenous community, the Ngöbe. Although the construction of the dam was still in its initial stages at the time the petition was filed, the petitioner alleged that the work …Read more

This was an appeal from an order of the South Gauteng High Court. The Applicants were members of the Harry Gwala Informal Settlement (Settlement). They approached the High Court for an order against the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (Municipality) to install communal water taps, temporary sanitation facilities, refuse removal facilitation and high-mast lighting in key areas, …Read more

The complainants, two human rights organizations based in Sudan, the United Kingdom and Canada, alleged gross and systematic violations of human rights on the part of the Republic of Sudan and Government-supported militia forces in the Darfur region against indigenous tribes, including the Fur, Marsalit and Zaghawa. The organizations alleged that since General Omar Al-Bashir …Read more

Tanzania was awarded funding from the World Bank to repair, upgrade, and expand the water and sewage infrastructure of Dar es Salaam. As a condition of the funding, Tanzania was required to appoint a private company to manage and operate the infrastructure improvements. The plaintiff, a British and German company named Biwater Gauff (“BGT”), won …Read more

Residents of the Matanza-Riachulo river basin brought a class action against the National State, the Province of Buenos Aires, and the city of Buenos Aires, as well as a number of businesses, for injuries resulting from pollution of the area. A lengthy information collecting process began in 2006. The Supreme Court of Argentina found that …Read more

Argentina’s Human Rights Ombudsman brought a claim against the National Government and the Province of Chaco to force Respondents to take the necessary measures to improve the deleterious living conditions of an indigenous community in Chaco that amounted to circumstances of extreme emergency. The Ombudsman claimed that the community lacked fundamental and basic necessities as …Read more

The plaintiffs were residents of a group of islands heavily affected by the 2004 tsunami. They argued that they were facing a number of problems which the local administration could take steps to mitigate and that the problems required immediate governmental action. They argued that, while there were relief funds, these funds were not being …Read more

The Appellant, a former Member of Parliament, filed a writ petition in the High Court of Bangladesh against the Government and other public authorities for their failure to comply with the Environment Conservation Act 1995 and the Environment Conservation Rules 1997. The petition alleged that there was widespread arsenic contamination in tube wells across the …Read more

During the conflict between armed groups and government forces that lasted from the 1980s until 2000, the government of Alberto Fujimori issued a law decree on April 6, 1992, ordering “the reorganization of the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) and put[ting] the National Police of Peru in charge of the control of security at the penitentiaries.” …Read more