Op-Ed: The Escazú Agreement & The Right to a Healthy Environment

By Claudia Ituarte-Lima*

By Environmental Governance Programme (EGP)

June 2^nd, 2021

In 2020, the UN Secretary-General's (UNSG) Global Call to Action on Human Rights, called for transformative action to support the work of environmental human rights defenders and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Under the rights of future generations theme, the UNSG called for universal recognition of “the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.

Key elements of the right to a healthy environment include a safe climate, clean air and clean water as well as adequate sanitation. Equally important elements encompass healthy and sustainably produced food, non-toxic environments in which to live and work as well as healthy biodiversity and ecosystems. The elements of access to information, public participation, and access to justice are also vital to environmental democracy and also as a means to achieve positive and long-term social-ecological outcomes.

The recently ratified Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (the Escazú Agreement) - signed by 24 countries - entered into force on April 22, 2021, the same date on which International Mother Earth Day is commemorated.

The UNSG has highlighted that this landmark agreement has the potential to unlock structural change and address key challenges of our times. It constitutes the first treaty promoting the rights of human rights defenders in environmental matters (Art 9), while recognizing the rights of present and future generations to live in a healthy environment (Art 1). Given that the promotion of human rights can trigger societal change, the agreement holds potential to support NHRIs to protect and promote the right to a healthy environment.

Further dialogue is needed between a broad range of actors ranging from NHRIs in various countries, to governments and civil society organizations in order to understand how NHRIs can use the Escazú Agreement to advance the promotion of human rights and biodiversity, for example, by supporting participatory environmental monitoring initiatives aiming to prevent pollution and biodiversity loss as a result of mining activities, and associated impacts on human rights.

UNDP, in cooperation with partners, is in the process of planning a webinar to identify strategies to implement the Escazú Agreement in synergy with global biodiversity commitments. Such strategies include innovative participatory environmental monitoring schemes and country-driven National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. They encompass transnational collaboration with a broad range of actors, including the European Union.

*Claudia Ituarte-Lima is researcher on international environmental law at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and affiliated senior researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She is a visiting researcher at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. Ituarte-Lima holds a PhD from the University College London and a MPhil from the University of Cambridge.

Additional Resources:

Report from the Dialogue Series on "The Escazú Agreement, Human Rights and Healthy Ecosystems"

Held in October 2021, the Escazú Agreement dialogue series focused on the implementation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean. They were organized with the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCR), the UN Environment Programme, and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), as part of a broader partnership on the UN Secretary-General's Global Call for Action on Human Rights.