Featured Commitment – Chile
Country: Chile
Commitment: Strengthening Environmental Democracy
National Action Plan: 2014-2016
Principle 10 of the Declaration of Rio recognizes that the right to access information, justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi... and participation in environmental issues is the best way to deal with some of the current environmental challenges. The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and its subsequent declaration, posed a transformation in environmental governance and democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Twenty years later, most of the countries in the region have made progress in strengthening their internal legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... and institutions to incorporate the guiding principles from the Rio Declaration of 1992. In practice this has materialized in the creation of an environmental ministry or equivalent institution, the adoption of primary and secondary legislation and regulations for participatory instances like consultative boards to the environmental authority and official bodies for environmental assessments and project evaluations and licensing regulations. However, there are still limitations countries encounter when implementing Principle 10, including lack of resources, knowledge around these issues and weak institutionalized practices.
As an answer to this, ten countries from the region have agreed to adopt a Latin American and the Caribbean agreement on rights to access information, participation and justice in environmental matters. Chile played a key role in this process and as part of their second OGP action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen..., committed to lead the negotiation process, comply with national guidelines and adopt an official position with regards to the proposed agreement.
This commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... has the potential to transform the legislation and practices in the signatory countries on the right to access information, participation and justice in environmental matters, if an agreement is reached with binding and robust dispositions. This would imply that countries will have to pass or reform their legislation and governmental practices to comply with the agreement.