QUNO organised a side event at the UN Human Rights Council on 4 March on “Procedural Rights and the Environment: The Principle 10 Negotiations in Latin America and the Caribbean”. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, John Knox, the Ambassadors of Chile and Costa Rica and Marcos Orellana of the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL), provided an update on what all agreed is the most significant development around the right to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters at the moment.

This event on “Enhancing the Potential of Business for Sustainable Development and Sustaining Peace” provided an opportunity to publicly share research commissioned by the American Friends Service committee (AFSC) for their Business and Peace Programme and present the development of a new tool by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank for enhancing access to information on environmental matters for local communities.

Representatives of 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries who were gathered in San Jose, Costa Rica adopted the first binding regional agreement to protect the rights of access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters (Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development), an unprecedented legal instrument for the region.