Individual v. Government of Costa Rica

In December 2024, the plaintiff filed an Amparo Lawsuit before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica, alleging that the Executive Branch and the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA) have omitted to include the evaluation of climate impacts in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures.

The plaintiff argued that Executive Decree 43898-MINAE-S-MOPT-MAG-MEIC of December 21, 2022, which regulates environmental assessment in the country, is unconstitutional because it does not include the obligation to assess the climate risks and climate impacts of proposed projects, nor does it establish climate change mitigation or adaptation measures.

The main argument is that this omission violates the right of present and future generations to a safe climate within the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, which is incompatible with international standards and commitments, such as the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC. The plaintiff requested the Court to order the State to include climate change in the EIA and review projects in process under this new criterion.

On June 16, 2026, the Constitutional Chamber granted the amparo. It held that the Executive Branch and SETENA violated Article 50 of the Constitution by failing to issue rules that bring climate variables into environmental impact assessment (EIA) instruments. The Chamber agreed that land-use plans should address climate change but rejected the respondents’ position that project-level assessment must wait for those plans. Nor, in the Chamber’s view, did technical, methodological, or budgetary gaps justify the omission.

The majority relied on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' Advisory Opinion OC-32/25. Section III invokes paragraph 546 on the pro actione principle to support hearing a claim that named no specific project. Section IV refers to the opinion’s treatment of the pro natura principle at paragraphs 281 and 552 (cited as 582). Section V.1 also cites paragraphs 216 and 279–286 on pro natura. It quotes paragraphs 359 and 361, which require EIAs to assess effects on the climate system and set the minimum content of EIA regulation. Section VIII draws on the opinion’s standards of enhanced due diligence, intergenerational equity, and differentiated protection of vulnerable groups (paragraphs 98, 236, 308, 311–313, 346, 348, 349, 353–356, and 614).

The Chamber relied separately on the Inter-American Court’s earlier Advisory Opinion OC-23/17 for the autonomous right to a healthy environment, the precautionary and prevention principles, and prior EIA (Sections IV, V.1, and VII). It also quoted paragraph 298 of the International Court of Justice’s 2025 advisory opinion on climate change, which addresses EIAs.

It ordered the Minister of Environment and Energy and the Secretary General of SETENA to incorporate into the EIA regulatory framework, within 18 months, the obligation to examine the climate risks and impacts of activities, works, and projects, together with the mitigation and adaptation measures that developers must implement. The State was ordered to pay costs and damages.