Colombia: Antonio Mauricio Monroy Cespedes

This 1993 case concerns the Colombian Municipal Administration’s decision to place a landfill in the village of Montecarlo near the town’s main source of water. The Constitutional Court held that the operation of landfill near a source of potable water violated the right to a healthy environment protected in the Colombian constitution. The Court stated that the right cannot be separated from the rights to life and health of human beings, and that it is a right fundamental to the existence of humanity.