Nine Latin American and Caribbean Countries Pledge Regional Convention on Access Rights

The Access Initiative (TAI) Secretariat and its TAI partners played a pivotal role in the agreement by Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay to begin the process of negotiation of a regional instrument on access rights. Countries from the region continue to sign the Declaration. With Rio+20 providing an ideal launch pad for such an agreement, The TAI Secretariat created an international task force to promote a LAC Regional Principle 10 Convention. Jointly partners made submissions to the United Nations that were reflected in the draft declaration by heads of state.  TAI partners also engaged LAC governments and regional bodies such as the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe, both of which declared their support. Following high-level advocacy efforts, Jamaica and Chile took the lead in publicly calling for a regional, binding legal instrument to implement access rights. Then nine countries announced their agreement at a TAI event at the Rio+20 summit. A regional convention in Latin America, following on one in Europe, will also promote the spread of access rights worldwide. TAI seeks to scale such regional models into global learning and action.