What is the Escazú Agreement?
The Escazú Agreement¹ is the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation, and Access to Justice in Environmental Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. It seeks to guarantee access to information, citizen participation and access to justice in environmental issues for the region.
What are we doing with Escazú?
We believe that there is still a long way to go for the Agreement to become better known, more visible and implemented. That is why we believe it is essential to continue deepening our work in communicating and educating about this important tool. We believe that the more people and organizations know about the rights and tools provided by the Escazú Agreement, the greater the reach and impact of its implementation will be.
It seems impossible for us to apply the rights contained in their text if those who must resort to them do not know them. For this reason, in 2023 we developed and carried out, together with the Latin American School of Community Advocacy and Legal Activism, a free course called “Megáfonos de Escazú” (Escazú’s Megaphones) for people from all over Latin America. The course was designed to provide participants with specific content on the Escazú Agreement and knowledge on environmental and digital communication, integrating these two fields to encourage participants to become multipliers of the Agreement.At the same time, participants were expected to generate a positive socio-environmental impact in their communities.
Through these actions, we also seek to raise awareness and challenge decision-makers to accelerate political processes, as it is evident that the Agreement is not being implemented with the necessary speed and urgency.
Challenges 2024 for Argentina
In Argentina we are going through a critical context that has been going on for a long time, and in recently it has deepened far from improving. As of December 10, 2023, a new national government has begun, creating significant uncertainty about the future of the Escazú Agreement and its implementation in our country.
At Consciente Colectivo, alongside other organizations from all over the country, we have been working on different strategies and lines of action on each of the pillars of the Agreement in order to ensure its correct and prompt implementation. For example, one of the pillars that seems to us of special relevance, is the training of decision-makers of the three branches of government – Executive, Legislative and Judicial -. It is not feasible to expect judicial rulings that incorporate the Escazú Agreement in their normative arguments if the judges are not familiar with the Agreement.
If you want to know more about this topic, we leave you this note.
Consciente Colectivo on Elected Representatives of the Public
One of the leaders and co-founders of Consciente Colectivo, Mijael Kaufman Falchuk, was elected² as one of the six “Elected Representatives of the Public”³ for the Escazú Agreement. The mandate and role is for 4 years, ad honorem and seeks, among other objectives, that the public of the agreement (all those who are not governments or ECLAC) have representation in the formal instances. It is one of the few agreements in the world that has this unique and important role, which has made it possible to have representatives “of the people” at the same decision-making table where the governments and ECLAC are present.
A few months ago, in the context of the COP2 (Conference of the Parties to the Agreement), he gave the opening speech and here are some fragments:
