The norm, in detail
In Mendoza a mine's environmental permit is voted by the Legislature, and that turns it into law
Law 9684 (2025)
in forcePROVINCIAL
Energy and natural resources
Law 9684 approves the PSJ Cobre Mendocino EID and makes it binding: the conditions falling on contractors take on the rank of law.
What changed and who it applies to
What changed
Four articles. «Article 1 - The Environmental Impact Declaration (EID) is hereby approved by Joint Resolution No. 405/25 of the Directorate of Mining and 71/25 of the Directorate of Environmental Management and Oversight -E/IIA- Project named PSJ COBRE MENDOCINO, to be developed in the District of Uspallata, Las Heras Department, Province of Mendoza. / Art. 2 - It is established that everything provided for in the Environmental Impact Declaration approved in article 1, which as an annex forms an integral part of this Law, shall be binding». ⭐ Article 2 is what changes everything: it turns the 162 articles of the environmental resolution into a LEGAL obligation rather than an administrative one, and with them the conditions falling on the project's contractors and subcontractors. verif · Dec 11, 2025 ↗
In force
In force from the day after its publication in the Official Gazette, under its own article 3. verif · Dec 12, 2025 ↗
Are you in or out?
On the project's contractor more than on the owner. The environmental permit's obligations stop being administrative and take on the rank of law, and among them is article 23, which obliges the owner to extend its integrity and compliance programme across the whole supplier chain «through mirror clauses and prior and periodic due diligence». For a company that wants to work at PSJ, that is not a buyer preference: it is a legal condition. verif · Dec 11, 2025 ↗
The norm
Law 9684, enacted on 9 December 2025 and promulgated by Decree 2783 of 10 December («Let Provincial Sanction No. 9684 be held as Law», signed by Alfredo Cornejo). Published in Official Gazette 32493 of 11 December 2025. verif · Dec 11, 2025 ↗
Our reading
In Mendoza a metalliferous project's environmental permit is not signed by an official: it is voted by the Legislature. Art. 3 of Law 7722 requires it and art. 162 of the Environmental Impact Declaration itself says so. No other province in the observatory works this way, and the practical consequence is that the document where the contractor's entry barriers live carries, in Mendoza, the highest possible rank. ⚠️ And there is a queue: in the same Official Gazette 32493 of 11 December 2025, Law 9685 approves another twenty-seven mining Environmental Impact Declarations, through consecutive joint resolutions from 408/25 and 74/25 onward. That list is the line of projects coming behind the first Mendoza copper. thesis
Where it lands, province by province1
Mendoza It gives the environmental permit of Mendoza's first copper mine the rank of law, and with it the conditions falling on its contractors — among them the integrity programme extended across the whole chain with mirror clauses. For the supplier, the project's entry barrier is one of compliance, not technique. favorable thesis
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Fact sheet built on the published rule, with the gaps declared. Back to the reforms
How to read the seals → verif primary source · prob primary source pending · unconf not sufficiently backed · estim our own calculation · thesis our reading