Colombia, the great absence at the first summit of the Escazú agreement

This Wednesday, April 20, in Chile, the first Escazú Summit will be held, however, Colombia will not be present at that meeting. International news portals assured that the country's absence occurs amid criticisms that point to the national territory as the most dangerous place in the world to be a defender of nature and to be the second most biodiverse nation. This agreement had the Colombian President, Iván Duque, in the midst of the controversy, when the processing of the agreement, in Congress, was rejected during the first attempt at approval.

“The Government has had the will. This is the second time he has submitted it and we are waiting for the legislative agenda to (...) tell us what the agenda for the last two and a half months of Congress will be needed, and from the Government we will be there defending the agreement,” argued Colombian Minister of Environment Carlos Eduardo Correa, in view of the country's absence from the meeting.

It was in July 2020 that the head of state asked Congress to process, as a matter of urgency, the law to ratify the Escazú Agreement. This process, however, was subjected to various obstacles due to postponements in the conduct of the debate with which it intended to be adopted. It is for April 26 that a debate will be held again in the Senate for the ratification of the agreement. It was thanks to Congressmen Iván Cepeda, Antonio Sanguino and Feliciano Valencia, and their appeal to the Statute of the Opposition, that the debate will be revived.

“We have been particularly insistent that the country requires approval of the Escazú Agreement. President Iván Duque's Government has made multiple promises to the international community and the United Nations that it will be approved, but these announcements have become demagoguery, which contrasts with the maneuvers to prevent ratification of the Treaty,” Cepeda commented to the decision.

According to Correa, the reasons why there was a first rejection of Escazú had to do with the “lack of socialization resulting from a long and complex year and a half where socializations could not be made in the territory and where the Congress was virtually”. To deal with misinformation, the minister declared, an attempt has been made to promote “four major regional socializations”.

According to information from the organization Global Witness, around 65 environmental defenders were killed in Colombia in 2020. The meeting that Colombia will not attend, at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), aims to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the agreement. The financial provisions for the operation of the treaty will also be discussed. There are 24 countries that have signed, but only 12 of them have ratified the pact.

The Escazú agreement aims to protect the lives of environmentalists, seek guarantees that improve the implementation of environmental policies, guarantee environmental rights and safeguard biodiversity in current times when there is a warning of a climate emergency. “The substantial object of this agreement is access to information, which finds citizen participation, that finds access to justice on environmental issues and something that is vital, the defense of human rights in environmental matters,” said former congressman Jorge Londoño.

In response to the announcement of today's meeting, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), will request the incorporation of five points to guarantee their participation in that summit. That organization represents 511 indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

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