Topics: Access to Information

By Lesly Baesens (Posted: December 11, 2012)

In an unprecedented move, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom of information when it ordered the National Institute for Retirees and Pensioners (PAMI) to release information on its advertising budget as requested by the Association for Civil Rights (ADC).

ADC, an Argentinian Human Rights NGO, requested the budget from the national health insurance agency back in 2009. PAMI would not provide the information, saying that it was not part of Decree 1172/03, which regulates access to public information for the government’s Executive Branch. Confronted with the rejection, ADC decided to sue PAMI. It won the case before the Court of Appeals but PAMI appealed to the Supreme Court. This was the first case of freedom of information brought to Argentina’s highest court.

PAMI claimed that it is not a government agency and is therefore not subject to public disclosure. The Court argued that because its funding comes from the Executive Branch, PAMI has to abide by the Decree, particularly because the requested documents did not contain any sensitive information.

The court’s ruling, issued on December 4, advanced the right of public access to information. This ruling marked an important victory for freedom of information advocates, as it is the first time the Supreme Court in Argentina has recognized this right. The full opinion in Spanish can be found here while highlights in English are available here.

By Carole Excell (Posted: November 30, 2012)

A number of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries recently took a huge step forward in ensuring environmental democracy for their citizens. At a UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) meeting in early November, these countries agreed on a road map to ensure full implementation of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration.

Principle 10, otherwise known as the environmental democracy principle, affirms that all citizens have a say in the environmental and development decisions that directly impact them. In one of the few bright spots of the Rio+20 sustainable development conference this past June, 10 LAC countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay—adopted and publicly signed the Principle 10 Declaration. This month’s ECLAC meeting in Santiago, Chile marked the first gathering of Government representatives after this historic Declaration. Most importantly, governments adopted an agreed-upon road map defining a process to draft a Principle 10 Action Plan, which will be submitted for adoption in early April 2013.

What Is Significant About the Santiago Meeting?

The LAC Principle 10 Declaration signed at Rio+20 marked the first time that developing countries formally considered adopting a regional, legally binding instrument to ensure effective implementation of Principle 10. The Santiago meeting was the first step towards actualizing the Declaration—a move with huge implications for the rights of Latin American and Caribbean citizens.

A few other significant things happened, too, including: • Brazil officially became the 11th country to adopt the declaration and roadmap.

• The Governments of Chile, Mexico, and Dominican Republic agreed to lead the process of outlining an Action Plan for implementation.

• Representatives from each government declared their commitment to take active measures to bring environmental information into the public domain, doing everything possible to guarantee ready, rapid, effective, and practical access to that information.

• Governments recognized the need to exchange and intensify regional and international cooperation. Initiatives to facilitate cooperation and potentially integrate into the work include the United Nations Environment Programme’s work to promote voluntary guidelines on developing national Principle 10 laws; the Organization of American States’ American Strategy for promoting public participation in decision-making; and the new Open Government Partnership, which has a number of natural resource commitments on transparency and public participation.

• Governments agreed to actively work with civil society in this process. They’ll conduct various forms of national consultations and ensure participation of a wide range of civil society partners.

What’s Left to Do?

The recent Santiago meeting was a promising development, but there’s still more work to do to further the development of a legally binding convention in the LAC region. At upcoming meetings, countries will need to:

• Decide on the type and form of regional agreement or legally binding convention to be created;

• Figure out exactly how to solicit greater civil society participation in decision-making processes, as well as ensure widespread consultation on commitments and expectations; and

• Increase the number of countries participating in this process, especially those in the English-speaking Caribbean nation. Jamaica is currently the only English-speaking Caribbean country participating in this process, which is open to all members of ECLAC.

Ensuring Environmental Justice for All

Many NGOs and other experts largely regarded Rio+20 as a disappointment. Even Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and head of the UN Environment Programme, recently remarked that “We all share to a greater or lesser degree a sense of frustration that Rio+20 did not deliver all of the opportunities that it could have.”

But when it comes to Principle 10 and the LAC region, there’s a huge opportunity to make progress. The Santiago meeting shows that at least one of Rio+20’s outcomes has started to yield real results. Now, we’ll need to continue watching this process and ensure that LAC countries live up to their commitments in this area.

This blog was originally posted WRI Insights.

By Dave Cooper (Posted: November 30, 2012)

This blog was written by Dave Cooper, WRI’s Film and Brand Manager, and was originally posted WRI Insights

Consider this blog post to have been written hastily on the back of a cocktail napkin. Not really, of course, as my handwriting is increasingly poor in this digital age. But I’m in acceptance-speech mode, as WRI just won the 2012 EthicMark Award for its environmental justice film, Sunita.

This award, which I recently accepted at the Sustainable Brands London conference, is given for advertisements that “uplift the human spirit and society.” WRI tied for first place in the non-profit category, along with Ten Thousand Villages’ fantastic film, World Fair Trade Day 2011. We at WRI are incredibly thankful to the folks who honored us with this award—the World Business Academy, Ethical Markets Media, and the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business—and I’m thrilled to be returning to Washington, D.C. with our first-ever award for communications.

While the story of winning this award is certainly a pleasure to share, it’s nothing compared to the story of creating Sunita.

Sunita’s Story

WRI’s The Access Initiative (TAI)—a project that works to promote access to information, public participation, and transparency in environmental decision-making—approached me about making a video about one year ago. We sat down to discuss what they wanted to say. It was a typical creative kick-off meeting that asked the usual questions: Who’s the audience? What’s your budget? When’s the deadline?

Soon after I began asking these questions, TAI’s Director, Lalanath de Silva, told me about a woman named Sunita and the struggles she experienced with her local government. Sunita makes a living collecting firewood from a forest near her home. One day, she finds a sign telling her that she must vacate the land, as the forest and the property her home is on are being razed to make way for a new highway. When Sunita tries visiting her local government’s office to complain, she’s told there’s nothing she can do—the decision is final, and she and her children must vacate in seven days.

I liked the story. A lot. I sat there imagining sitting down with this very proud woman and shooting a beautiful video that would give us a glimpse into her everyday life and the difficulties she’d experienced.

But it wasn’t that simple.

One Name and Face to Represent 2.5 Billion

“Great! So, can we interview Sunita?” I asked. The looks on the faces of the team seated around the table told me I lacked a key detail. “Sunita is not actually one person,” Lalanath explained, “She’s a character I developed to represent many, many people I’ve met over many years that tell me their own variation of this story.”

Oh.

Lalanath explained how billions of people across the globe regularly experience hardships like Sunita’s, due to their poverty and lack of participation in environmental and development decision-making. In fact, more than 2.5 billion people around the world live on less than $2 a day. In order to protect their livelihoods and ensure that environmental decisions benefit local communities, these citizens need to have a voice in government.

“Millions of women like Sunita have similar problems, and they live all around the world—sometimes they are our next door neighbors,” said Lalanath, who also narrated the video. “If we want development to help people like Sunita, then we have to do business differently and include them in our plans and decisions.”

Sunita gives a face to the billions of people facing injustices across the world, making her message all the more relatable and easy to understand—and harder to ignore. Animation was the perfect medium to tell this story.

Protecting Citizens from Environmental Injustice

Our video was born out of the TAI team’s passion for the work they do and the real life experiences Lalanath has had through many years. The fact that Sunita has been recognized with this award is humbling to me and the TAI team. It’s also a good indicator that people really do care about the struggles of people in developing countries.

We’ll prominently feature this award in our offices in Washington, D.C. We will continue to tell Sunita’s story and others like hers in order to reach the audiences that have the means to affect real change on the ground. It’s our hope that this video will be a very small part of the solutions required to solve very complex problems–like environmental injustice.