Overview
- Argentina’s federal court in Santa Rosa, which ruled Friday, denied a bid to suspend Law 27.804 nationwide after environmental groups and La Pampa’s government sought an urgent halt.
- Judge Juan José Baric said the plaintiffs did not show concrete, current, and imminent environmental harm and cited the Supreme Court’s Thomas precedent that warns against injunctions that stop laws passed by Congress.
- Even as he rejected the injunction, Baric admitted the collective amparo, ordered the national government to file a detailed report within five days, and left the law in force while the case advances.
- The challenge, led by Governor Sergio Ziliotto, the National University of La Pampa, and NGOs, argues the reform narrows protected zones, weakens the glacier inventory and IANIGLA’s technical role, and shifts key calls to provinces that could allow mining near water reserves.
- La Pampa officials said they will appeal, and industry voices cast the ruling as an early relief for mining as parallel cases and a possible Supreme Court review now loom.