In the 70s, international tribunals were held to condemn the military involvement of the US in Vietnam, a few years later there was another tribunal to trial military dictatorships in Latin America and Africa, and then to denounce the inconvenience of the payment of the foreign debt.

“The peoples of the South are not debtors. We are the creditors of an ecological and climate debt”, stated Beverly Keene, Jubilee South coordinator, and one of the judges of the International Tribunal carried out in Bolivia.

The activist also stated that the “scourge” of climate change is the result of a development model that associates “accumulation of wealth with happiness”.

The Climate Justice Tribunal analyzed the cases of Khapi community in Bolivia, impacts on Bajo Lempa communities in El Salvador, a denunciation against Dutch Foundation Forest Absorbing Carbon Emissions, another on the climate impacts caused by the Initiative for the Regional Integration of South America (IIRSA) and a complaint filed by the Association of Sugarcane Workers of Cauca in Colombia.

The tribunal also made reference to Volcan Mining and Peru´s government and the damage caused to little children with lead in their blood in Cerro de Pasco, in addition to another denunciation against Doe Run Peru due to the contamination in Junin region.

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