Ensuring Accountability: Argentina

Individuals, communities and progressive judiciaries worldwide have used numerous methods of obtaining legal redress on issues affecting the right to water, including public interest litigation, public nuisance actions and provisions in criminal law relating to water issues, such as pollution.

In the case of the Paynemil Community in Argentina, an injunction was filed against the government in order to prevent activities impacting negatively on the right to water of the community and to hold the government accountable for its failure to meet its obligations in regard to this right.

In this case, the water supply of an indigenous community, the Paynemil Mapuche Community, in Neuquén, Argentina, had been polluted with lead and mercury by an oil company.

The Public Defender of Minors of Neuquén (Children’s Public Defender) filed an injunction ('amparo') against the Neuquén Government on the grounds that the Provincial State was obliged to provide the necessary fresh water for community survival since access to water is a basic human right. She argued that since the right to health can only be guaranteed through access to water, access to water is a fundamental human right and the Government was neglecting its obligation to safeguard the health of the population.

The Children’s Public Defender also demanded the diagnosis and treatment of the affected minors, and the implementation of appropriate measures to prevent the pollution of the land and water.

The first signs that the phreatic layer had been polluted by the oil company had emerged in October 1995 when hydrocarbon (probably gasoline) was extracted from beneath the land occupied by the community.

In 1996, a commission formed by the University of the Comahue, the 'Assembly for the Human Rights on Aborigines' Land', had presented a report to the Director of Hydrologic Resources, informing the government of the probable contamination of the water supplies used by the community. The report included an analysis of the potability of water extracted from the site.

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