The initiative empowering Latin America's female land defenders

"A pioneering legal instrument for environmental protection, but also a human rights treaty." This is how the NGO La Ruta del Clima, based in Costa Rica, describes the Escazú Agreement. Named after the Costa Rican city where it was signed on 4 March, 2018, the agreement is officially titled the "Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean."

The negotiation had begun much earlier, at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012, with the adoption of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which "seeks to ensure that every person has access to information, can participate in the decision-making process and has access to justice in environmental matters with the aim of safeguarding the right to a healthy and sustainable environment for present and future generations."

A key point to understanding the Escazú Agreement is that it provides guiding principles for nations to develop legal and governmental instruments that promote its main goals: access to information and justice in environmental matters, and participation in the decision-making process. The agreement offers a set of instructions for governments to enforce through legislative, regulatory, administrative or other measures, emphasising that "each Party shall seek to adopt the most favourable interpretation" of the guidelines.

Some items offer a more specific idea of how the treaty may be implemented. Among them, the following stand out: a 30-business-day deadline for authorities to respond to requests for environmental information; the necessity to designate impartial entities or institutions to promote transparency in access to environmental information; the obligation to present the terms of a decision to the relevant public before adopting it; and the requirement for authorities to identify the public directly affected by a project or activity and facilitate their participation, as well as to ensure that decisions adopted in environmental matters are documented in writing.

Adriana Vasquez, operational director at La Ruta del Clima, stated that the main beneficiary of the agreement is the population of Latin America, particularly the most vulnerable groups and communities.

"This agreement benefits nature conservation because it recognises the interrelationship and interdependence of the three dimensions of sustainable development," she said. "[It also] represents a mechanism for the protection of environmental movements, ensuring that activists can carry out their activities without putting themselves at risk."

Hesitancy to ratify 

In April 2024, States Parties gathered for third meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 3 and committed to an Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders in Environmental Matters. This plan included a roadmap with "a set of priority areas and strategic measures to advance towards the full and effective implementation of Article 9 of the Escazú Agreement on human rights defenders in environmental matters." However, numerous challenges still prevent the agreement from being fulfilled.

Notably, not all Latin American nations signed the agreement, and only 16 out of 25 nations have ratified it since it came into force on April 22, 2021. (The complete list of nations that have signed, ratified, and are State parties is available here.)

While signing the deal indicates a country's interest in the treaty's terms, Vasquez explained, ratification imposes binding legal commitments. A country that has ratified the agreement must incorporate it into its legal framework and implement concrete actions to ensure compliance with the agreement's objectives.

Osprey Orielle Lake, executive director at Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), told FairPlanet that ratification leads countries to be "legally bound to protect environmental defenders, ensure public participation, and provide access to environmental information and justice." 

One example is Argentina, which ratified the treaty in January 2021. Two years later, the government announced the first National Plan for the Implementation of the Escazú Agreement in Argentina, a document that lists dozens of concrete measures to achieve the Escazú goals, although most of them still use vague terms like "promoting" or "boosting," without specification.

For instance, the country committed to promoting access to public information based on an existing law while technically aligning the different internal sectors of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MAyDS) to generate updated information. The plan also includes specific actions, such as making information about pollutant emissions and transfers available online and promoting the participation of indigenous communities in environmental decision-making processes that could potentially affect them.

Another country democratically advancing the implementation of the Escazú Agreement is Chile. In its Participatory Implementation Plan of the Escazú Agreement, actions are divided by responsible institutions, mainly ministries, with deadlines ranging from 2024 to 2030.

And while the plan includes similar broad goals, such as "establishing legislative, regulatory, and/or administrative measures aimed at strengthening the Environmental Impact Assessment System," it also outlines more concrete measures. Some of the most notable measures include developing educational, informative, and didactic materials about the main contents of the agreement, as well as creating specific training programmes for different audiences on the legal framework.

Vasquez affirmed that some countries refrain from ratifying the deal for several reasons, including a lack of political will, economic and financial constraints, lobbying from extractive industries and other economic interests, as well as economic inequality and social exclusion.

"The environmental agenda in many governments is not a priority, which reflects a lack of commitment on the part of institutions and decision-makers with respect to the process not only of ratification, but also of full implementation, as is the case in Costa Rica."

Supporting implementation

To boost the chances of advancing the treaty's implementation, WECAN launched the "Escazú Agreement Toolkit for Women Land Defenders and Frontline Communities", available for Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Brazil is expected to have its own version by the fall of 2024. 

The toolkits provide a comprehensive guide to each country's laws and civil rights, both individual and collective. They outline the violations and threats faced by environmental defenders in an accessible manner and include lists of public institutions, NGOs, legal aid organisations, university legal services, and projects addressing issues like violence against women, with detailed contact information for each service.

Lake explained that the toolkits were designed to help women in various territories understand how to apply the Escazú Agreement within their unique contexts and navigate their countries' laws effectively. This, she told FairPlanet, is one of many efforts to provide land defenders, especially women in the Latin American region, with resources to protect themselves while advocating for their territories and communities.

Lake also noted that while the toolkits share similar information, they are tailored to address the specific sensitivities and characteristics of each country.

"We intend for these toolkits to be resources for how the Escazú Agreement can be implemented in relation to laws and policies that already exist in various countries, including whether or not a country signed or ratified the agreement," she said. 

The importance of these initiatives is endorsed by Patricia Gualinga, spokesperson for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva and WECAN Steering Committee Member for the Escazú Agreement. During the official launch of the toolkit, Gualinga, an indigenous woman from the Kichwa People of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, emphasized that her community has been defending their territories against extractive industries at great personal risk, particularly for the women on the front lines.

In an interview with FairPlanet, she stated that Escazú Agreement is an "instrument in the defence of human rights, but above all in the defence of women defenders of nature and the Amazon rainforest."

She stressed, however, that "governments and companies continue to carry out the same practices to the detriment of rights." 

Regarding the role of women in the implementation of the Escazú Agreement, the Sarayaku leader regrets that female voices are not being taken into consideration.

"I personally believe that indigenous women are not being heard and are not being taken into account in the discussions on the agreement," she said. "It is very important to take into account women from the territory, because they are the ones who suffer the most violence.

"The government should respect international laws and treaties, as well as court rulings. And when it comes to extractivism, it should respect the right to consent."

Image by Elianna Gill.