A federal court in Argentina has suspended the application of President Javier Milei’s controversial changes to the glacier protection law in Santa Cruz Province, dealing the reform push its first legal blow.
The ruling halts Milei’s new law, which allows provincial governments to redefine protected zones and open periglacial areas to potential mining and energy activity, pending further judicial review.
The injunction follows a collective lawsuit filed by Concejo Deliberante of El Calafate, a town located around 80 kilometres from the Perito Moreno glacier, a vast ice formation stretching 30 kilometres in length and rising some 70 metres high in Patagonia.
According to the ruling, reported by local media, the plaintiffs sought to declare the reform “unconstitutional, contrary to international agreements and null and void in absolute terms.”
The reform to the so-called “glacier law,” approved by Congress on April 9 despite strong opposition from environmental activists, was promulgated on Friday by the Executive.
Environmental organisations warn that the measure will deepen the climate crisis, arguing that mining or oil exploration in periglacial areas could put water sources at risk.
The court granted the precautionary measure, immediately suspending the effects of the law within its jurisdiction while the case is examined, citing the “risk” posed by its potential implementation.
“The possible enforcement of a regulatory framework that lowers environmental protection standards could enable activities impacting highly fragile ecosystems, such as glaciers and the periglacial environment, whose effects, if realised, could prove very difficult or impossible to reverse,” the judge argued.
Although the ruling applies only to Santa Cruz Province, it points to a wave of legal challenges likely to spread across the country.
La Pampa’s provincial government filed its own injunction in federal court as soon as the reform was passed on April 9. Legal and environmental groups have also brought a case before the Supreme Court this week, while Greenpeace is backing a class action, with further filings expected in at least six other provinces.
The legislation, formally enacted through Decree 271/2026 as Law No. 27,804, marks a significant shift in Argentina’s environmental policy.
After a tense and closely fought debate in Congress, the government secured its passage in the Lower House by 137 votes to 111, relying on support from allied blocs to reach quorum and push the reform through.
At the heart of the overhaul is a profound change in the legal framework governing glacier protection. The reform dismantles the centralised system in place since 2010, transferring authority to provincial governments to define the technical criteria determining which ice bodies and periglacial areas should be preserved.
This “provincialisation” of environmental oversight replaces a uniform national standard with locally defined thresholds, meaning areas that fail to meet new provincial criteria could lose their protected status and become open to economic activity.
For environmental groups, the shift represents a historic setback. Critics argue that fragmenting technical standards opens the door to the revival of mining and extractive projects in zones previously safeguarded under the National Glacier Inventory.
The dispute is now rapidly moving from Congress to the courts. Civil society organisations and grassroots assemblies are mobilising to join collective legal actions seeking to strike down the law. Their central argument is that glaciers, as strategic freshwater reserves feeding river basins that span multiple provinces, cannot be managed in isolation by individual jurisdictions.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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