The Regional Environmental Agreement of Escazú: a Comparison with the Aarhus Convention

The Escazu Agreement is a regional environmental agreement in Latin America signed by 24 States in 2018 and entered into force among 13 States in 2021. The agreement builds on the 1992 Rio Declaration and guarantees the right to information, participation and judicial review in environmental proceed...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Niedrist, Gerhard, Figueroa Bello, Aida
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:México
Institución:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repositorio:Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/18151
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.juridicas.unam.mx/index.php/derecho-internacional/article/view/18151
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Acuerdo de Escazú
Convenio de Aarhus
Medio ambiente
Am´érica Latina
Escazú Agreement
Aarhus Convention
environment
Latin America
Accord d’Escazú
Convention d’Aarhus
environnement
Amérique latine
Descripción
Sumario:The Escazu Agreement is a regional environmental agreement in Latin America signed by 24 States in 2018 and entered into force among 13 States in 2021. The agreement builds on the 1992 Rio Declaration and guarantees the right to information, participation and judicial review in environmental proceedings. The Escazú Agreement is innovative in that it explicitly guarantees the right of every human being to a healthy environment and contains its own monitoring mechanism, which includes the possibility of individual complaints by individuals and civil society. The Escazu Convention is the second example of a regional environmental agreement and is similar in many respects to the 20-year-old European Aarhus Convention, which is based on the same origins, principles and has almost identical monitoring structures. Since its entry into force in 2001, the Aarhus Convention has greatly influenced European environmental legislation and case law. Compared to the Aarhus Convention, the Escazu Agreement appears more far-reaching and ambitious, for example, by explicitly standardizing the human right to an intact environment. However, if one compares the two more detailed agreements, it is clear that the Escazu Convention lacks some technical-legislative details, so that a comparable influence on Latin American environmental legislation and jurisprudence cannot be expected.