Recording of the class:
Course Description:
Access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters are essential to advance the rule of law at the national, regional and international levels. In a context of complex socioenvironmental conflicts and exacerbated inequalities, implementation of environmental access rights is particularly challenging and urgent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Adopted at Escazú, Costa Rica, on 4 March 2018, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters is the region’s first treaty on environmental matters and the world’s first to include provisions on human rights defenders in environmental matters. Having met the conditions required under article 22, the Escazú Agreement has entered into force on 22 April 2021, coinciding with International Mother Earth Day. This session provided an introduction to the Escazú Agreement and identify how it constitutes a landmark agreement to address the challenges that the countries and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean face in exercising their rights to protect the environment.
Recommended Readings:
The Escazú Agreement Website, where you can find the following resources:
- Observatory on Principle 10 in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Introductory Course on SDG 16 and access rights, the Aarhus Convention, and the Escazú Agreement
- UN Environmental Rights Bulletin
- Video and story: Who defends environmental defenders?
- Mini course on environmental defenders
- Information and resources for environmental defenders
Instructors:
Andrea Brusco is the Regional Coordinator (Latin America and the Caribbean) of Environmental Law and Governance for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Maria Antonia Tigre is the Director of Latin America for the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE). Through GNHRE, she has increasingly focused her efforts on human rights-based climate litigation in Latin America. She is also a coordinator of the human rights group, with a particular focus on ecological rights, for the Global Pandemic Network (GPN), a community of scholars created to debate legal aspects associated with pandemics. Ms. Tigre is currently finishing her S.JD. in international environmental law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
Daniel Noroña graduated with an LLB from Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador and holds a Master’s degree in Environmental and Energy Law from Tulane University in New Orleans, USA. Additionally he also received a specialization degree in ESCE rights from the Buenos Aires University. He is the Deputy Director for Latin America of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, and as well a member of the International Network on Climate Change, Energy and Human Rights. He has experience in issues related to development and human rights, environment, climate change and international cooperation. Previously, he was an officer for the Attorney General’s Office of Ecuador and the Ombudsman’s Office of Ecuador. He currently serves as a consultant for Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.