Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú Agreement)
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Adopted by: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL), a UN regional commission · Kind: Binding treaty · Scope: Regional (Latin America and the Caribbean) · Adopted: 2018
A binding regional treaty for Latin America and the Caribbean, adopted at Escazú in Costa Rica in 2018 under the UN regional commission ECLAC and in force since 2021. It rests on three linked rights treated as substantive rather than merely procedural: access to environmental information, participation in environmental decisions, and access to justice in environmental matters. It is the first binding environmental treaty in the world with an explicit article protecting environmental defenders, a direct response to the region's record as the deadliest in the world for them, and it frames the right to a healthy environment as belonging to present and future generations alike.
The Escazu Agreement was adopted at Escazu, Costa Rica on 4 March 2018 and entered into force on 22 April 2021, negotiated under the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a United Nations regional commission. It was adopted by and for the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it required eleven ratifications to come into force.
Its stated aim, in ECLAC's official description, is to guarantee the full and effective implementation of the rights of access to environmental information, public participation in the environmental decision-making process and access to justice in environmental matters, and to strengthen the capacities and cooperation needed to protect the right of every person of present and future generations to live in a healthy environment.
The Agreement is built on three pillars, and it treats all three as substantive rather than merely procedural: the right to know what is happening to the environment, the right to have a say before decisions are made, and the right to a remedy when environmental harm occurs or rights are denied. Transparency and voice are set up as prerequisites for environmental protection, not as separate concerns alongside it. The right to a healthy environment is framed as belonging to every person of present and future generations, so it is not limited to those alive today.
Its most distinctive provision is the reason it exists. Escazu is the first binding environmental treaty in the world with an explicit article protecting environmental defenders, committing parties to guarantee a safe environment for individuals, groups and organisations that promote and defend human rights in environmental matters, including their life, integrity, freedom and safety. That article is a direct response to the region's record as the deadliest in the world for environmental and land defenders, and to the extractive-industry conflict and land disputes behind that record.
Adoption has been partial, and the Agreement's own tracking says so. As checked when this archive was built on 12 August 2026, it showed 24 signatures and 19 Parties out of the 33 countries the Agreement was written for. The complete text is published by ECLAC in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Quechua, Mapudungun and Rapanui.
Key provisions · 5 provisions
Principle 1
The Agreement guarantees the rights to environmental information, participation in environmental decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters, so present and future generations can live in a healthy environment.
environmental-rights · healthy-environment
Principle 2
The Agreement treats the rights to know about the environment, to have a say before decisions are made, and to obtain remedy for environmental harm as linked and substantive, not separate procedural add-ons.
access-to-information · public-participation · access-to-justice
Principle 3
The Agreement is the first binding environmental treaty to explicitly guarantee a safe environment for environmental human-rights defenders, protecting their life, integrity, freedom and safety.
environmental-defenders · human-rights
Principle 4
The Agreement frames the right to a healthy environment as belonging to both present and future generations, not only to people alive today.
future-generations · intergenerational-equity
Principle 5
The Agreement was negotiated by and for the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as a region-specific response to extractive-industry conflict, land disputes and violence against environmental defenders.
regional-treaty · extractive-industry