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#### Towards Environmental justice: the ratification of the Escazu Agreement

#### Aim:

Get the Peruvian congress to ratify the Escazú agreement considering growing environmental concerns and lack of a normative framework to deal with them. The strategy outlined seeks to do so by gathering the support / hiding the opposition of the private sector, known for guiding politicians’ actions, and using access to foreign investors as an incentive. Done thorough a combination of insider and outsider strategies this strategy can swing the necessary votes to pass ratification.

#### Context:

In September 2018 the Peruvian government joined 21 States of Latin America and the Caribbean in signing the Escazu agreement. A big step towards environmental and human rights protection, the agreement has 3 main objectives (United Nations, 2018):

- • the full and effective implementation of the rights of access to information in • the full and effective implementation of the rights of access to information in environmental matters
- • participation in the environmental decision-making process • participation in the environmental decision-making process
- • to justice in environmental matters • to justice in environmental matters

This This entered into force on April 2021, in the 12 States that ratified it to date. Despite being one of the original signatories, however, Peru failed to ratify the agreement in 2020, when the Foreign Affairs Commission (FAC), mirroring arguments voiced by private business guilds, voted for the bill’s archival, denying it a plenary vote. However, new political parties entered the field through the April 2021 elections making it feasible to try again. For the agreement to come into effect in the country, it must be ratified by congress in a three-step process:

- 1. Proposal of a bill to ratify the agreement (either by congresspeople or by the Executive)
- 2. Approval of the bill by the Foreign Affairs Committee (given that it is an international treaty)
- 3. Approval through a plenary vote

The most recent attempt at rushing the bill to a plenary vote – bypassing the three-step process by presenting a request to the Board of Spokespersons for a bill to be exonerated of commission evaluation – has also failed (Actualidad Ambiental, 2022). While this was done amidst as political crisis – which might have shifted the priorities of the legislative – those opposed quoted loss of sovereignty as a justification (Luque, 2022). By relying on the regular three-step process, however, we can make the most of the slow bureaucratic proceedings gathering private sector support and lobbying commission members with enough time be FAC and subsequent plenary vote.

#### Window of Opportunity:

Latest polls show the President, the president in of the Congress, and Congress itself with their lowest approval ratings to date – 19%, 15%, and 14%, respectively (IPSOS, 2022). The recent oil spill in the capital’s coastline, and the lack of/delayed action to correct the environmental crisis and sanction those responsible has already sparked civil society’s unrest and highlights the need for a normative framework that guarantees access to information and environmental justice. Furthermore, the latest addition to the list of indigenous activists getting murdered in the VRAEM region – 5 this year alone – has once again brought to light the vulnerability of the communities fighting for the environment. Recent tax cuts announced after long and violent transport strikes in the Andean region (Cervantes and Quinn, 2022) also inform us about the government´s responsiveness to civilian upheaval. This proposal exploits congress’ need for a ‘win’ by turning to civil society and pressuring the private sector – backer of opposition politicians – to voice its approval / hide their opposition to the agreement. With upcoming regional and municipal elections, it relies on political parties’ desire to clean their image before being placed under public scrutiny. This is something of particular importance for the newly formed parties seeking to establish themselves and keep their portion of the electorate. Given that the