More than 30 social and environmental organizations analyzed the article by article the reform of the Glacier Law promoted by the national Government and concluded that it is “illegal and unconstitutional“.
The document, released by the Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN), defends the current legislation and targets the changes that the administration of Javier Milei promotes in Congress.
In this, the NGOs warn that the project reduces the protection of glaciers and the periglacial environment to favor the mining sector.
In particular, the Glacier Law reform alters the minimum budget system established in Article 41 of the National Constitution, which guarantees common environmental protection throughout the territory.
According to the document, the project replaces federalism of agreement with what the organizations call an “administrative feudalism”. Now, each province could decide what to protect and what not, without a common floor of environmental protection.
This is contrary, they point out, to the National Constitution and to human rights treaties such as the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Article by article, what changes the reform of the Glacier Law
The analysis goes through each point of the reform of the Glacier Law project and explains its main changes. Article by article, these are:
- Article 1: glaciers cease to be public goods with special protection. Provinces would operate on them without recognizing the collective right to the environment.
- Article 2: the National Glacier Inventory loses scope. It will no longer include all glaciers, but only those that fulfill strategic water reserve functions, according to provincial criteria.
- Article 3: the precautionary principle is reversed. Glaciers will only be protected until provinces verify whether or not they fulfill water functions.
- Article 4: provinces may order the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (IANIGLA) to remove glaciers from its Inventory if they consider that they do not fulfill those functions, without uniform scientific criteria. The document warns that this is especially dangerous: there are frozen soils with no relevance for a large basin but high importance for a micro-basin.
- Article 5: the absolute prohibition of activities that alter the glaciers is replaced by a provincial authorization. The document notes that this would benefit mining projects such as Josemaría, Los Azules, and El Pachón, which cross or are near debris glaciers.
- Article 6: the case-by-case environmental impact assessment replaces a strategic basin vision, in contradiction with a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that ratified the constitutionality of the Glacier Law.
- Article 7: provinces define what is protected, which empties the concept of minimum budget and fragments the national environmental protection.
Why NGOs consider the reform unconstitutional
The document argues that the reform of the Glacier Law violates the principle of non-regression, contained in the Escazú Agreement (Law 27.566), a regional treaty with a hierarchy superior to national laws.
It also omits principles established in the General Environmental Law: pro natura, pro water, solidarity, cooperation, and progressivity.
Their absence in the reform of the Glacier Law project is not a minor detail: these principles are what prevent an environmental norm from regressing concerning the standards already achieved.
The organizations warn that the changes create “a scenario of environmental regression” by unprotecting areas currently safeguarded.
The text states that its weakening would lead to irreversible environmental, economic, and social impacts.
The Glacier Law, they point out, does not block development: it organizes it. It sets limits only where there is frozen water, on the surface or in depth, ensuring that no activity advances over areas where the damage would be permanent.
In a context of climate crisis and sustained retreat of glaciers worldwide, the organizations consider that the reform of the Glacier Law is not only legally invalid but also scientifically and environmentally unjustified.
