These reports, published in May 2022 by the news agency N-TV, attracted attention because they came to light shortly before the entry into force of ILO Convention No. 169 in Germany. After years of civil society efforts, Germany decided in 2021 to ratify Convention No. 169, which protects Indigenous Peoples’ rights. The ratification aimed to express the solidarity of the Federal Republic of Germany with Indigenous Peoples worldwide, and it was expected that the European power would respect, protect and uphold their rights through its international economic policy.

However, Germany’s growing demand for Colombian coal gave new impetus to El Cerrejón, the largest coal mine in Latin America which, in 2021, had announced a gradual shutdown due to falling demand for the mineral. The reactivation of the mine has already had serious consequences for the Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples living in the area.

El Cerrejón and the Wayuu People

El Cerrejón is located in the department of La Guajira, in Colombia’s Caribbean region, on ancestral Wayuu territory. The Wayuu are the largest Indigenous People in Colombia, numbering over 300,000 in La Guajira, and they also inhabit the state of Zulia, across the border in Venezuela. The mining complex was established in 1976 following the signing of a partnership agreement between the Colombian State, through Carbocol, and the International Colombia Resources Corporation (Intercor), a subsidiary of Exxon.

Coal extraction began in 1983. For several decades, two multinational mining companies, Anglo American and BHP Billiton, each held equal shares in the enterprise. Between 2000 and 2002, the Colombian State sold its stake through Carbocol. Today, Carbones del Cerrejón, the company that operates the mine, is wholly owned by the Swiss transnational Glencore.

In one of the driest regions of tropical South America, several rivers —the main sources of water— have disappeared. Fine dust emissions from mining and the high levels of mercury have severely affected the health of local residents.

The company rerouted the Bruno north of its natural course in order to extract the coal beneath it.

Since its inception, the local communities within El Cerrejón’s area of influence have suffered severe environmental, social, and cultural impacts as a result of the mine. Around 35 Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities have been displaced from their ancestral territories. Mining activities have polluted the soil, air, and water. In one of the driest regions of tropical South America, several rivers —the main sources of water— have disappeared. Fine dust emissions from mining and the high levels of mercury have severely affected the health of local residents: almost all Wayuu people suffer from respiratory illnesses and skin rashes.

The Cerrejón company has, since 2013, sought to develop a new open-pit mine known as La Puente in order to expand coal extraction. To do so, it has diverted the Bruno Stream, a crucial tributary of the Ranchería River —the only major river in this arid region— which flows through the heart of El Cerrejón’s concession area. The company rerouted the Bruno north of its natural course in order to extract the coal beneath it. In response to this escalation, several local communities, both Wayuu and Afro-descendant, have denounced the project, stating that they were not consulted.

The Conflict over the Bruno Stream

In 2017, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the company Carbones del Cerrejón and state institutions had violated the Wayuu people’s rights to water, food sovereignty, and health by authorising and carrying out the diversion of the Bruno Stream’s natural course in order to expand the mine. The Court therefore ordered the suspension of the coal exploitation zone, which had been expanded by the El Cerrejón complex without consultation. Throughout the legal process, the claimants were subjected to threats.

Ruling SU-698/17 was regarded as a legal victory for the plaintiffs before the Constitutional Court. The Court justified its decision on the basis of the project’s impacts on the local climate and the health of residents, as well as on the cultural rights protected under Colombia’s constitutional framework. It also recognised the river’s spiritual significance. For the Wayuu, rivers are not only sources of life but also sacred entities. As lawyer Mateus Parra explained: “One of the supreme deities of the Wayuu lives in the rivers. When the river disappears, this goddess can no longer be invoked.”

The use of international arbitration mechanisms (ISDS) demonstrates how the defence of Indigenous rights clashes with the global investment protection regime, which grants corporations asymmetrical legal advantages over States.

The use of international arbitration mechanisms (ISDS) demonstrates how the defence of Indigenous rights clashes with the global investment protection regime.

In its ruling, the Court instructed the company, the authorities, and the affected communities to work together to find a solution to the most contentious issues. Instead of complying with the decision, however, Anglo American and Glencore launched international legal action against Colombia. The companies resorted to a mechanism of public international law that grants foreign investors the right to initiate arbitration proceedings against the host State. The basis of their claims was that the State had altered the conditions under which the investment was made, thereby undermining the investors’ legitimate expectations of profit. The companies argued that the Court’s decision amounted to a measure equivalent to indirect expropriation without compensation, even though it was grounded in national constitutional norms designed primarily to protect human rights and the environment.

The use of international arbitration mechanisms (ISDS) demonstrates how the defence of Indigenous rights clashes with the global investment protection regime, which grants corporations asymmetrical legal advantages over States. In their investor–State arbitration claims, Glencore and Anglo American described ruling SU-698/17 as “discriminatory and unreasonable”, invoking bilateral investment treaties to safeguard their economic interests over and above human rights.

Failure to Uphold the Spirit of the Court’s Ruling

In April 2022, a report by the Interinstitutional Technical Committee, chaired by the Ministry of Environment, revealed that the Bruno Stream would remain diverted into an artificial channel. The José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective commented: “The Committee expects the ‘purpose of the Court’s ruling’ to be fulfilled. In turn, they note that the recommendations regarding ‘the Wayuu people’s world vision, spiritual and cultural aspects’ have already been incorporated into the study with contributions from the La Horqueta community. In exchange for the permanent destruction of the Bruno Stream’s natural ecosystem, the company offers, as ‘compensation’ measures, the construction of a ritual site and the expansion of nurseries.”

Organisations such as the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective interpreted this outcome as a failure to uphold the spirit of the Court’s ruling and as a precursor to the international arbitration claims previously initiated by Glencore and Anglo American against the Colombian State. However, the international arbitration proceedings brought by the companies against the Constitutional Court’s decision were closed in 2023. This occurred in the context of negotiations with President Gustavo Petro regarding the mine’s future, as part of a “planned energy transition” under the new government.

A report by Censat Agua Viva estimates that El Cerrejón consumes some 30 million litres of water per day —approximately 40% of the water available in the region— while thousands of families lack access to drinking water.

El Cerrejón consumes some 30 million litres of water per day —approximately 40% of the water available in the region— while thousands of families lack access to drinking water.

Backed by administrative decisions, the Swiss company Glencore thus continued to divert the course of the Bruno Stream. Human rights organisations have interpreted this institutional support as a form of “state capture”: the lobbying efforts of El Cerrejón executives are believed to have influenced public entities to skew the outcome of the Interinstitutional Working Group (established by order of the Court itself) and secure approval for the stream’s diversion, disregarding the opposition of local communities.

A report by Censat Agua Viva estimates that El Cerrejón consumes some 30 million litres of water per day —approximately 40% of the water available in the region— while thousands of families lack access to drinking water. Water deprivation has been so severe that, in 2023, President Gustavo Petro publicly accused the company of being partly responsible for the deaths of “thousands of Wayuu children” from hunger and thirst. Although his remarks sparked political debate, they illustrate the scale of the humanitarian crisis perceived nationwide. Furthermore, neither El Cerrejón nor the Interinstitutional Committee took into account the Wayuu people’s spiritual connection to the rivers.

The War in Ukraine and German Imports

Historically, El Cerrejón was operated by a consortium of three mining giants: Anglo American, BHP Billiton, and Glencore. In January 2022, when Glencore acquired full ownership of the mine, it assumed complete responsibility for its social and environmental impacts. Weeks later, the war in Ukraine triggered a surge in Colombian coal demand from Germany. This spike contrasts sharply with the company’s legal actions: while benefiting from the boom, it was simultaneously litigating against Colombia through the ISDS mechanism for “losses” arising from the constitutional protection of the Bruno Stream.

By 2023, production had increased by 12%, and Glencore announced its intention to operate the mine until 2034. As of August 2025, Glencore remains the sole owner, despite international lawsuits and political pressure. Current output stands at approximately 24 million tonnes per year (2024). Although this is below the historical peak of 32 million tonnes reached in 2015, it represents a significant revival compared with pre-Ukraine war levels, when the mine was on a path toward gradual closure. However, this development contrasts with the European trend of progressively reducing coal consumption in favour of renewable energy. Coal from El Cerrejón is a structurally declining resource, yet its extraction continues to leave irreversible impacts on the Guajira desert.

To date, the mine’s record reveals a pattern of forced displacements, pollution, unfulfilled compensation promises, and extensive use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric.

The mine’s record reveals a pattern of forced displacements, pollution, unfulfilled compensation promises, and extensive use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric.

With the entry into force in January 2023 of the Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LKSG), the “German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act”, the El Cerrejón case acquired even greater significance. This legislation requires large German companies to ensure that their global supply chains are free from serious human rights violations and environmental damage. In practice, this means that companies that are importing coal from El Cerrejón, such as EnBW, Uniper, and STEAG, are now accountable for complaints raised by the Wayuu communities.

This framework also serves as a test of the effectiveness of international norms against the reality of abuses. To date, the mine’s record reveals a pattern of forced displacements, pollution, unfulfilled compensation promises, and extensive use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric. Glencore and its partners have implemented various “sustainability” initiatives, yet German and Colombian critics denounce these as greenwashing. The German Bundestag has questioned the fact that Glencore’s claims of compliance with the UN Guiding Principles contrast sharply with reports of disease, hunger, and displacement in La Guajira.

Governance and Social Struggles

The conflict surrounding El Cerrejón cannot be understood solely as an environmental dispute. It represents a relational space in which the development vision of the Colombian State, the interests of a multinational corporation, and the survival of an Indigenous People converge. Within this space actors exercise different forms of power—economic, legal, and symbolic—and continuously negotiate meanings, including the very concept of “development”.

These negotiations do not take place between monolithic blocks. Wayuu demands have evolved from an initial call for financial compensation to a sophisticated assertion of ethnic rights: autonomy, ancestral territory, and the right to define their own model of development. This “politics of identity-based claims” has enabled them to engage with the mining project without being entirely subordinated, strategically leveraging the multicultural framework of the 1991 Constitution to gain legitimacy.

German companies can no longer claim ignorance regarding the origin of their coal. The critical question is whether the law will serve as an effective instrument for the Wayuu or remain trapped in a web of bureaucracy and symbolic gestures.

German companies can no longer claim ignorance regarding the origin of their coal.

Despite these internal dynamics and the company’s divisive strategies, the Wayuu people have resisted by means of railway blockades, legal action, and international alliances. In 2015, they petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which granted precautionary measures to protect Wayuu children from malnutrition and lack of water. In 2019, Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognised that pollution from El Cerrejón was violating fundamental rights: ruling T-614/2019 established that the mine infringed upon the rights to health, water, food, and a healthy environment. However, the enforcement of these rulings has been slow and selective.

In this context, Germany’s role is particularly significant. As both an importing country and now a regulator under the LKSG, its decisions directly affect local dynamics. German companies can no longer claim ignorance regarding the origin of their coal. The critical question is whether the law will serve as an effective instrument for the Wayuu or remain trapped in a web of bureaucracy and symbolic gestures.

The Double Standard of the Energy Transition

El Cerrejón epitomises the dilemmas of the global energy transition: as Europe seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and shift towards “clean” energy sources, it is, in the short term, turning to Colombian coal, exacerbating the crisis in Indigenous communities. The impact on the Wayuu people is just one example among many across Latin America.

Recent events illustrate how local struggles over water, health, land, and spirituality intersect with global debates on corporate responsibility, climate justice, and sovereignty. The presidency of Gustavo Petro has once again placed the issue on the national agenda, linking the hunger and thirst of Wayuu children directly to mining exploitation. In Germany, the entry into force of the LKSG now provides an unprecedented opportunity to ensure that documented abuses do not go unaddressed.

The central question remains: can a transnational legal framework compel Glencore to respect Indigenous rights, or will the logic of global capital continue to prevail? Either way, the Wayuu struggle serves as a stark reminder that the energy transition cannot be a just one if those who pay the highest price are ignored.

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Eliel Castillo: Our way of being, living and existing is called Akuaipa. This is what allows us to walk in harmony and balance between the territory, the plants, the animals, the stars and the natural elements. We have never had anyone or anything from elsewhere to do with us. We accept autonomy as what our parents taught us: they gave it to us as an inheritance and we have passed it on from generation to generation. And we have kept it. We have never depended on someone outside our culture to exercise it, practice it and pass it on.

DI: How does the traditional practice of “palabreo” relate to autonomy?

EC: Wayúu culture is about listening and dialogue. In order to learn the ancient knowledge of our ancestors, one must learn to listen. The only way to understand is by listening. It is a way of learning that gives the human being back the possibility of quieting his life in order to learn. In this way, we pass on what we have learned to the next generations. The Wayúu have always been characterised by this: we can spend a week listening and then pass on our contributions to continue strengthening the ancient knowledge of our parents. However, society has lost the ability to listen: we always want to talk, we always want to say, we always want to participate, but we never want to listen.

DI: The Wayúu people are organised through the matrilineal link, what is the woman’s role?

EC: Amongst our people, there is the element of both complementarity and duality. The balance between light and darkness; the balance between rain (which for us is a man) and earth; the balance between cold and heat. The role of the woman is very important because she is the one who gives birth to life, who protects it and who has the duty to form it. The existence of our people depends on her. The Wayuú woman is born of the earth and is represented by the sea: they are the wombs that have given birth to our culture.

Eliel emphasizes that the Wayúu culture is characterized by listening and dialogue. Photo: Andrés Unterladstaetter / Iwgia

Eliel emphasizes that the Wayúu culture is characterized by listening and dialogue. Photo: Andrés Unterladstaetter / Iwgia

DI: What is the importance of the elders in the community?

EC: The man, the grandfathers, the father and the maternal uncles train the Wayuú men so that each one learns and has clarity about his role within the culture. So that when he meets a woman, he can balance the knowledge. As a man, I learned from my grandfather how to dress, I even remember him telling me that as a Wayúu we should even learn how to walk. So that we are respected, so that we are valued, so that we never have any kind of difficulty. My grandfather is 92 years old and he says that no one has ever raised his voice because he learned to live as his grandparents taught him. This is always his invitation for us to continue transmitting our way of being, living and existing as Wayúu people.

DI: How do Wayúu people connect with nature?

EC: The principle that defines my people is to be in harmony and balance with what is around us: with the spiritual, the natural and, of course, the human manifestations. I was listening to the experience of the Guaraní people who say that everything that exists in the territory has an owner. We, the Wayúu, say that everything that exists in the territory has protectors: the water, the land, the sea, the trees, the animals are the ones that protect everything from spiritual life to the existence of our world. In order to be able to relate to them, we must have a respectful attitude and follow the traditional rituals.

DI: What is life like for Wayúu children and young people living in the territory?

EC: As children, when we are 3 years old, we leave our parents to live with our grandparents until we are 12 years of age. In my case, I had the opportunity to live in the city, but always with the idea of returning to my territory; that’s where my grandparents were, my land, my home: it is not the same to be confined within the city as to be in a territory where you can run around in peace.

DI: What did you learn from the experience of living outside the territory?

EC: Living in the city taught me the value of Indigenous Peoples to the world, for they guarantee life and take care of the resources that nature provides us with. It taught me that as young people we must exercise leadership from within the territory. Although my territory is difficult to access and very vast, we are used to the dynamics of travelling, walking and hiking. We remain committed to staying in the territory to bring the knowledge we don’t have and to strengthen the processes.

Jepírachi Wind Farm. In La Guajira, wind energy developed from the misery of the Wayúu people. Photo: Indepaz

Jepírachi Wind Farm. In La Guajira, wind energy developed from the misery of the Wayúu people. Photo: Indepaz

DI: How do the Wayúu people relate to the development model promoted by non-indigenous society?

EC: There is a notion of development that has to do with water, energy, gas and all the things that people in the city need to be able to live on a little piece of land. Without these resources, cities do not advance. The big multinationals have projected this way of life as development: to have a place with the right conditions for people to live. Supposedly that makes the economy grow. They have also tried to convince Indigenous Peoples that adopting this way of life would also allow us to develop. Fortunately, this has not happened.

DI: With the aim of reducing the use of fossil fuels, the various Colombian governments are promoting wind farms in La Guajira that affect the Wayúu territory.

EC: Coal mining arrived 45 years ago in the Wayúu territory, promising development. According to the 2018 census conducted by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), La Guajira is the second poorest department in the country. Our poverty level is 92.5% at a multidimensional and monetary level, so much so that a woman working as a domestic maid earns 20 dollars a month. Then came coal, 30 years ago gas began to be exploited, 25 years ago we had the first wind farm, and yet poverty continues to grow. The so-called “clean energies” are supposedly better than coal, gas and oil, but for the Wayúu people they still have the same natural, social, ancestral and spiritual impact.

DI: So the wind farms have not benefited the Wayúu people?

EC: Today we have an invasion of wind farms that were installed under the conditions of other governments with the sole aim of generating profits. Wind farms are presented to us as a better option, but they have the same impact. Windmills are justified as an energy that contributes to mitigating climate change, but the only thing they seek is to continue filling the coffers of multinationals at the cost of deforestation of the territory, death, poverty and misery of the Wayúu people. The name has changed, but it has the same level of impact as before.

DI: Specifically, what is the impact of wind farms?

EC: As a result of the arrival of multinationals in La Guajira, wars have broken out between Wayúu families, resulting in deaths. Many of them for defending the value of the territory and conservation for our survival. In addition to this, there is the extraction of metals used to build these windmills: in the department there is authorization to exploit copper, gold and even more coal. However, the windmills are not built in Colombia, but in other parts of the world; we export the low value-added raw material and then import the final product. Finally, the sound emitted by the blades affect hearing, while the shadows cast by the spinning mills cause damage to vision.

The arrival of wind farm developers has caused clashes among the Wayúu, even resulting in deaths. Photo: Damián Andrada

The arrival of wind farm developers has caused clashes among the Wayúu, even resulting in deaths. Photo: Damián Andrada

DI: Do Wayúu communities have energy?

EC: The communities do not have any kind of energy so far. There is neither energy nor any guarantee of improving the quality of life in a desert territory that is large and difficult to access. There is also the pollution caused by the spillage of hydraulic oil consumed by the engines that move the blades. And it’s not just the wind farm. With the wind farm comes an electrical substation that stores the energy generated by the windmills. In addition, there is the transmission line that crosses the territories: electromagnetic energy is concentrated in these current paths.

DI: What is the effect of pollution on the Wayúu people?

EC: As a result, the Wayúu are no longer going to die as elderly people, as used to be the case. Either we are born with malformations or we die very young, or we develop pathologies related to pollution. What used to be a beautiful landscape is now full of wind farms. To close what pollution is: on a spiritual level, people will no longer be able to dream, and dreaming is what guides Wayúu life. We are heading towards what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights warned of: the physical and cultural extermination of the Wayúu, one of the most numerous peoples in Colombia.

DI: How did the Wayúu people respond to the historic change brought about by the arrival of Gustavo Petro to power?

EC: We hope to change the relationship between the territories and the companies. First, so that the contracts of the companies already installed in La Guajira can be reviewed. Second, to improve the quality of life of the communities and provide better opportunities for the children who will be born in the territories where these parks are located. Petro visited La Guajira for the third time in the aftermath of storm Julia. The times he has been there, he has said that the Wayúu need to be partners with these companies. Petro is a hope, he gives us the opportunity to change the relationship, the negotiation and the living conditions that the Wayúu have had for a long time.

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