Nine Important Results from the Escazú COP3
Between April 22nd and 24th, 2024 the third meeting of the parties to the Escazú Agreement was held in Santiago, Chile. The Escazú Agreement COP3—or in long form, the Third Conference of the Parties of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean—was overseen by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which has its headquarters in Santiago. The international event drew the participation of multiple environmental NGOs, representatives of Indigenous peoples who defend Nature, and officials from diverse governments that have signed the agreement.
The Escazú Agreement is the first international treaty in history to enshrine rights for those considered defenders of Nature, in order to reinforce the protection of human rights in environmental matters. Likewise, it promotes the implementation of management and governance mechanisms in environmental matters, involving vulnerable groups such as youth, women, and Indigenous peoples in the process.
ELC’s Impact at the Conference
ELC’s Javier Ruiz at Escazú COP3
Given the importance of this agreement, Earth Law Center (ELC) has sought to actively participate in the Escazú development process since its beginning. Members of ELC’s Latin America team have not only participated in each of the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) that have taken place but also have developed projects that apply the guidelines of the Escazú Agreement in communities of women Nature defenders in vulnerable contexts.
At this time, together with our partner organization Defensa Ambiental, we are working with Indigenous communities of women defenders in Chile and Peru, identifying barriers to and gaps in the development of their rights. We are also urging their respective governments to recognize the importance of the Escazú Agreement, ratify its contents (in the case of Peru), and implement the contents of the respective Action Plan (in the case of Chile).
Ms. Marí Luz Canaquiri, President of the Indigenous Kukama Women’s Federation
At COP3 Escazú, ELC’s Javier Ruiz, Expert in Environmental Policy and Climate Change, accompanied Ms. Marí Luz Canaquiri, leader of a federation of Kukama Indigenous women who recently won their court case seeking the recognition of rights and Indigenous guardianship for Peru’s Marañón River. This marked the first time a river in Peru has been acknowledged as having rights.
“We Indigenous people ask that you respect us [in] our worldview, for us living beings have [the] spirit of [the] people,” said Canaquiri at COP3 Escazú. “We want our rivers to flow freely without any pollution, for our mountains and ancestral territories to be respected, because it is our life and it is the lung of the entire world. . . . Defending Mother Nature is defending our own lives.”
Members of ELC’s Latin America team also presented at official pre- and side events of the conference, discussing problems faced by civil society and Indigenous defenders in the application of their rights under the Escazú Agreement, as well as comparative experiences of the agreement’s implementation in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.
Nine Highlights of the Escazú COP3
The Regional Action Plan on environmental defenders was approved, maintaining the Regional Forum and the existing Working Group. This plan reinforces compliance of the treaty’s article 9°, establishing strategic actions that allow a safe environment for human rights defenders, without threats, restrictions, and insecurity in their activities.
The instrument of ratification of Dominica was deposited, making it the sixteenth State Party to the agreement.
The decision on national implementation was approved. From this, the Parties must have national implementation plans for the Agreement by 2026. This decision is of major significance since it urges the Parties to continue moving toward the full and effective implementation of the Escazú Agreement. Parties are encouraged, for instance, to create roadmaps for the national implementation of the Agreement through transparent and collaborative processes, embracing the implementation guidelines of the Escazú Agreement, prepared by the Secretariat.
The decision on mainstreaming the gender perspective was approved. This decision encourages the Parties to continue promoting the full and effective participation of women in all their diversity, including Indigenous women; to prevent discrimination and gender violence against women defenders, contributing to gender equality; and requests to the Secretariat to prepare a guide for the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in the implementation of the Escazú Agreement, to be presented at the next Conference of the Parties.
Three operational decisions were approved: COP4 is set for April 22nd to 24th, 2026 (again at ECLAS headquarters in Santiago, Chile, unless another location is proposed and accepted); a new mandate is granted to the board of directors; and the nomination procedure for the national focal points of the States Parties is established.
Topics of sessions organized on Mother Earth Day included: environmental information systems and emissions records, participation in environmental impact assessment systems, and access to justice.
The roadmap for the implementation of the Agreement in Saint Lucia was launched.
The joint UNESCO-ECLAC document, “Access to environmental information in Latin America and the Caribbean: synthesis of decisions of guarantor bodies and selected jurisprudence,” was published.
The report of the second Annual Forum on Human Rights defenders in environmental matters, organized in Panama in 2023, was distributed.
