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This Tuesday the Government confirmed that will not sign the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean” known as the “Escazú Agreement”.
The treaty considers principles such as environmental information, the participation of all those involved in decision-making, and the protection of environmental defenders. The pact will go into effect on September 26.
Previously, Foreign Minister Ándres Allamand had made known the government’s negative position to sign the agreement, stating that “It is inconvenient for Chile.”
Among the proposals of the Governments not to subscribe, it is that “the Treaty will not enter into force until it achieves the ratification of at least 11 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, a situation that, to date, has not yet materialized.”
“From a technical point of view, the Agreement contains rules that, according to their literal wording, could eventually be interpreted as self-enforceable, and others that, despite contemplating referrals to domestic legislation, generate or could generate 2 debate on their application by virtue of the conventionality control. Indeed, the application of the principles, definitions and general provisions of the Agreement, added to its supra-legal nature, opens up a serious uncertainty regarding the applicable substantive regulations, ”says the document released this day.
Along these lines, it was stated that “the Government of Chile considers the signing of the Escazú Agreement inconvenient, given the ambiguity and breadth of its terms, its eventual self-enforcement and the mandatory nature of its regulations that would prevail over internal environmental legislation, everything which one will generate a growing judicialization of environmental procedures and, it will pose a global picture of serious legal uncertainty ”.
Thus, it was indicated that “it exposes the country to lawsuits before International Courts for problems of interpretation of these new regulations. Finally, it must be added that the Treaty it does not admit reservations and that establishes various ambiguous obligations for the State of very complex implementation.
In this way, they justified their decision with 4 points:
(i) The Agreement introduces a series of undefined principles that will condition our environmental legislation.
(ii) The Agreement could imply uncertain changes in our legislation, given its self-enforcement, generating legal uncertainty.
(iii) The Agreement introduces ambiguous, broad and undefined obligations for the State, which make compliance difficult.
(iv) The Agreement exposes Chile to international controversies due to the direct application of its regulations and their ambiguous nature.
After knowing the words of Allamand where it was announced that Chile would not sign the agreement, different opposition parties issued a statement calling on the Government to sign the agreement before the deadline and indicated that the agreement “is a response to the situation faced by the population of the slaughter areas. The long struggle of the Puchuncaví-Quintero organizations would be different if they could have all the information in a transparent way”.
Likewise, they affirm that it is “the last opportunity this government has to demonstrate its commitment in defending the rights to participation of citizens and international leadership in the climate and ecological crisis.”
During this Tuesday, President Sebastián Piñera gave a speech at the 75th UN General Assembly. Among the topics he touched on, he referred to the world’s environmental situation, placing special emphasis on climate change and how it is a global duty to deal with it, referring to the melting of glaciers and Chile’s work on this matter, ensuring that the country is one of the pioneers in the region in taking measures with an environmental focus.
Check here the complete document:
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