SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC—The third meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 3) to the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean Escazú Agreement will take place here from Monday.
The three-day event will allow delegates from the region and regional and international organizations to consider and approve the Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders in Environmental Matters.
The ad hoc Working Group, including Chile, Ecuador, and St. Kitts-Nevis, prepared the plan.
According to the organizers, reports from the secretariat, presiding officers, and the Committee to Support Implementation and Compliance will also be presented, along with national implementation road maps. The parties will also discuss any other matter that they decide upon.
The meeting will be chaired by President Gabriel Boric of Chile. In addition to Javier Medina Vásquez, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commissioner for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Nicole Leotaud from Trinidad and Tobago, the elected representative of the public, will attend.
So far, the Escazú Agreement has been signed by 24 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Grenada, Guyana, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Uruguay.
The Agreement was adopted in Escazú, Costa Rica, on March 4, 2018, and entered into force on April 22, 2021. The 24 countries that have signed it can proceed to deposit their instruments of ratification at any time at the United Nations central headquarters in New York.
The countries that did not sign it within the first stipulated time frame—between September 27, 2018, and September 26, 2020—can become Parties through accession, with the exact legal requirements and effects of ratification.
The organizers said that on the sidelines of COP 3, other related special sessions and meetings will take place that will celebrate International Mother Earth Day on Monday as well as address topics such as producing environmental information, public participation in environmental impact assessment, access to justice, and mainstreaming the gender perspective in implementation of the Escazú Agreement. Mentation and Compliance and around 30 virtual side events will be held.
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