Two CARICOM Nations to be Officially Welcomed Into Escazú Agreement

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Two CARICOM countries will be welcomed to the second meeting of the Escazú Agreement, the first environmental treaty that takes place here from April 17-19.

The organizers said Belize, Chile and Grenada will attend the second meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 2),  Latin America and the Caribbean’s first environmental treaty bringing together authorities from the regional countries, as well as representatives of regional and international organizations.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which is the United Nations regional organization that serves as Secretariat of the Agreement,   said at the COP 2 of the Escazú Agreement, authorities and official representatives of the countries that are already part of the region’s first environmental treaty will elect the inaugural members of the Committee to Support Implementation and Compliance of the treaty and will consider any other matter decided by the Parties.

It said prior to the gathering, the Agreement’s presiding officers, consisting Uruguay as the chair with Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Mexico and St. Lucia as vice chairs,  have prepared a roster  of  10 candidates for the Committee to Support Implementation and Compliance, which will be presented on April 20).

This roster is composed of five men and five women, of 10 nationalities with three representatives from Central America and Mexico, three from the English-speaking Caribbean and four from South America.

From this roster, the COP will elect the seven people who will serve as the Committee’s members.

So far the Escazú Agreement has been signed by 24 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean namely, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Grenada, Guyana, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Uruguay.

The Agreement was adopted in Escazú, Costa Rica on March 4, 2018 and entered into force on April 22, 2021.

ECLAC said that the 24 countries that have signed it can proceed to deposit their instruments of ratification at any time at the United Nations central headquarters in New York.

“The countries that did not sign it within the first stipulated time frame (between September 27, 2018 and September 26, 2020) can become Parties through accession (a one-step procedure that necessitates no signature). The instruments of accession have the same legal requirements and effects as ratification.”