Law 99 of 1993 incorporated environmental licenses in Colombia as an instrument to control and monitor activities that may cause great impacts to the environment. However, an exception was established for those projects that were already in operation before the enactment of this law, known as the environmental transition regime.

Today, 30 years after environmental licenses were introduced into our legal system, there are large projects that continue to operate outside of them, such as El Cerrejón in La Guajira, Nechí in Antioquia and El Roble in Chocó.

In the following text we review the role played by environmental licenses, and then analyze the transition regime, both in its legal foundations, and in the multiple modifications it has undergone in a clear trend towards its flexibility and indefinite prolongation. This, in order to promote a national debate on the importance of ending this anachronistic environmental regime.