The Regional Environmental Agreement of Escazú: a Comparison with the Aarhus Convention El Acuerdo Ambiental Regional de Escazú: una comparación con la Convención de Aarhus Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • 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. © 2024 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • January 1, 2024