(Bogotá) The Parliament of Colombia, one of the most dangerous countries for environmental defenders, ratified on Monday the Escazu Agreement, the first environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean adopted in 2018 at the resulting from negotiations in Costa Rica.
Posted at 12:02 a.m.
Updated at 12:10 a.m.
” It’s a reality ! With 120 votes in favor, the Escazu deal was approved,” the Colombian Ministry of the Environment announced on its Twitter account.
Former President Ivan Duque initialed the agreement in 2019, but the legislature waited three years to ratify it.
The Escazu Agreement, signed in 2018 in this city located southwest of San José, was promoted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the regional agency of the United Nations.
This agreement was the first in the world to introduce specific provisions to protect the rights of environmental defenders, targets of numerous assassinations in Latin America.
It guarantees the protection of the environment and the health of people, mainly indigenous peoples, promotes public participation, access to information and justice in environmental matters.
It also enables people and communities to be informed and heard in decision-making processes that affect their lives and territories.
Adopted by 24 countries in the region, including Brazil, it was promulgated in April 2021 after being ratified by 12 of them (Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint -Christophe and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia and Uruguay).
The ratification in Colombia comes two months after the election of the country’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro.
“The International Treaty of Escazu has been approved as law […]. Congratulations to Congress and Colombian society,” Petro said on Twitter.
Several NGOs also welcomed this ratification, like the WWF branch in Bogota, which called it a “victory for the protection of environmental leaders, for nature and for the territories”.
The NGO Global Witness reported in September that Colombia was the second country in the world with the most environmentalists killed, with 33 cases in 2021 alone. Mexico is ahead with 54 homicides and Brazil is third (26 dead). ).