Latin American and Caribbean Countries Will Meet in Panama to Negotiate Agreement on Rights of Access in Environmental Matters

Delegates from the 20 countries that have signed the declaration on the application of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, regarding access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters, will meet in Panama on October 27-29, 2015 to continue negotiating a regional agreement on these subjects.

The Second Meeting of the Negotiating Committee of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean will be held in Panama City, and is organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the government of Panama.

The gathering will give continuity to the work begun at the first meeting of the Negotiating Committee, held in Santiago, Chile last May. The delegates will negotiate substantive aspects of the regional instrument, particularly the preamble and articles 1 to 10 of the preliminary document prepared by ECLAC, which was submitted to countries during the first meeting.

The event will be inaugurated on Tuesday, October 27 at 9:30 a.m. by Mirei Endara, Panama’s Environment Minister; María Luisa Navarro, Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs and Cooperation at Panama’s Foreign Affairs Ministry; a member of the public; and Joseluis Samaniego, Director of ECLAC’s Division of Sustainable Development and Human Settlements.

Participants in the gathering will work on the proposals made by countries since the conclusion of the first meeting for negotiations, which were compiled by the Committee’s Presiding Officers in a single text, as well as contributions by the public.

ECLAC holds the technical secretariat of this process. The negotiations for this regional agreement are expected to conclude by December 2016.

All of the relevant information regarding this meeting is available on this Web site (://negociacionp10.cepal.org/en).

The event will be webcast live on that site.

More information is also available at ://www.cepal.org/en/topics/principle-10.