ECLAC goal a healthy, sustainable environment
Guaranteeing the right to a healthy and sustainable environment for present and future generations was discussed April 5-8 during Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) meetings in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Implementing Principle 10 of ECLAC’s Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was discussed during the third meeting of the Negotiating Committee on the Regional Agreement. Delegates from countries that signed the declaration negotiated a regional agreement.
The aim of the meeting was to continue negotiating the substantive aspects of the regional agreement on the basis of the second version of the text that was compiled by the Committee’s Presiding Officers that integrates the countries’ text proposals, according to the agreement reached at the second meeting of the committee, held in Panama City on October 27-29, 2015.
Principle 10 seeks to ensure that every person has access to information, participates in decision-making and can access justice in environmental matters, with the aim of guaranteeing the right to a healthy and sustainable environment for present and future generations.
Principle 10 was signed in June 2012 during the United Nation’s Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro. In this Declaration, signatory countries committed, with the support of ECLAC as technical secretariat, to advance the implementation of a regional agreement for the full implementation of the rights of access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters.
Between 2012 and 2014, four meetings of the focal points of the signatory countries and 14 working group meetings were held. In November 2014, the countries launched the negotiation phase of the regional agreement and established a negotiating committee to conclude its functions by December 2016.
At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 20-22 June 2012, 10 Governments from Latin America and the Caribbean endorsed the Declaration on the application of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, in which they reaffirmed their commitment to rights of access to information, participation and justice regarding environmental matters, declared their willingness to work towards a regional instrument promoting the full application of those rights and requested the support of ECLAC as technical secretariat. Twenty countries have signed the Declaration to date and it remains open for signature by all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
