Opposition statute would allow the ratification of the Escazú agreement to be debated again: “It is a commitment of President Duque”

The Escazú Agreement could be revived in the Colombian Congress, after opposition politicians filed a paper before the Second Committee of the Senate of the Republic to be ratified again. The request was made on the morning of Tuesday, April 19 at the request of Senators Iván Cepeda, Antonio Sanguino and Feliciano Valencia.

It will be next Tuesday, April 26, the date on which the request of the left and center congressmen will be debated and voted on, which would allow the agreement that favors the environment and which has the coming of other nations of the continent, to be implemented in the country.

It was through the Opposition Statute that the initiative was advanced and it was recalled that President Iván Duque has said on multiple occasions that he will work to ratify what has been agreed in favor of the rights of human rights defenders in environmental matters.

“The opposition has been insisting in this committee the need to give an urgent procedure to the ratification of the Escazú Agreement. I would like to recall, it was a commitment made by the President of the Republic on international stages and particularly before the UN assembly. We are, of course, facing the possibility that this ratification will be frustrated again,” said the senator elected by the Historical Pact, Iván Cepeda.

In addition, the senator assured that they had to use this tool, created in 2018, due to “delays” from different sectors for the ratification of what was stated there. In fact, Cepeda recalled that in the last legislature they prevented “the progress of the approval or improbation procedure, as is currently the case”.

The parliamentarians cited sent the paper to the senator of the Democratic Center, Paola Holguín, president of the Second Committee. She was asked to approve Bill No. 251 of 2021 “the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean”, adopted in Escazú, Costa Rica, on March 4, 2018″, notes a press release sent by the campaign by Ivan Cepeda.

Following the request, it was approved that the other Tuesday should be taken into account on the agenda. Antonio Sanguino and Feliciano Valencia, for their part, welcomed the fact that the Opposition Statute gave them the opportunity to discuss the issue at next week's session.

The presentation of the aforementioned senators is known after the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), through the Program for the Defense of Indigenous Defenders (PDDD), demanded that the countries affiliated to the agreement implement mechanisms that guarantee the effective participation of indigenous peoples in the negotiation process at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP1) of Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean “Escazú Agreement”.

This year the event will be held in Santiago, Chile from April 20 to 22 and will hold bilateral meetings, panels, work tables and conferences. On this occasion, representatives and leaders from 24 countries that signed the agreement Latin America and the Caribbean will attend.

As for the representation of the indigenous communities of the Colombian Amazon, as part of a strategy of these populations, the National Organization of the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon of Colombia (OPIACO), is part of the organizations of more than 511 Amazonian indigenous peoples, COICA.

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