Spraying first and asking questions later: Congressional efforts to mitigate the harmful environmental, health, and economic impacts of US-sponsored coca fumigation in Colombia

This Comment evaluates a set of conditions enacted by the United States Congress in a 2002 appropriations act to mitigate the harmful impacts of U.S.-sponsored aerial pesticide spraying of coca plants in Colombia. It finds that the conditions are somewhat novel in that they explicitly apply U.S. environmental law to joint U.S.-Colombian activities taking place in Colombia. The State Department's compliance with Congress's conditions, however, is the subject of criticism. Yet, this Comment finds that the adequacy of this compliance is unlikely to be subject to judicial review. For this reason, lack of an explicit enforcement mechanism in the statute greatly weakens its potential to mitigate the human health, environmental, and human rights impacts of the spraying program.