SANTIAGO (AP) — Chilean President Gabriel Boric signed on Friday a bill for Chile's accession to the Escazú regional agreement that establishes environmental citizen rights and promotes the protection of environmental defenders.
Boric announced that Escazú will be the first project that his government will send for congressional approval, which he invited to process it “quickly because life cannot wait.”
Chile's accession to the agreement was one of Boric's campaign commitments, which he made a week after assuming the presidency and 18 months after his predecessor, Sebastián Piñera, refused to sign it.
The Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean is an unprecedented multilateral instrument in the region and promotes free access to information, citizen participation in decision-making and access to justice on these issues. It also protects the human rights of environmental defenders.
The regional environmental treaty is known as the Escazú Agreement because it was adopted in the Costa Rican city of the same name.