Mexico: Six Mayan children's lawsuit against pig farm suspends company's operations, case goes to Supreme Court
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Gaston Bailo
In October 2016, the government of the Mexican state of Yucatán granted the company Producción Alimentaria Porcícola (PAPO) a land use licence to install a mega-farm, without consulting the Mayan inhabitants of the area. Due to the impacts on health, access to water and environmental contamination that the company would cause, on 28 September 2018, six Mayan children from the town of Homún filed an amparo lawsuit in a Yucatán court to stop the farm's operations. Judge Cámara Patrón ruled in their favour and the farm, only two months after starting activities, stopped its operations. Environmental and human rights organisations and experts from different countries have drafted an amicus curiae brief in order to provide scientific elements of analysis to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, which will issue the final decision on the case. On 19 May 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) unanimously confirmed the definitive suspension of the mega-farm's operations, as a precautionary measure until the amparo trial is resolved. The final resolution is yet to be resolved in the Second District Court in the State of Yucatan. Two days after the SCJN decision, the Yucatan government carried out an operation and shut down the most visible water defenders in Homun. Organisations fear that the action will result in the criminalisation of environmental and peoples' rights defenders.