The regional process towards the adoption of a regional agreement on Principle 10 began with the Declaration on the application of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean adopted in the framework of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. By means of the Declaration, the signatory countries committed themselves to work towards a regional agreement on the rights of environmental access to information, public participation and access to justice, matters which are enshrined in Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.

The Declaration currently has 24 signatory countries regional process and is open to all countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.



Between 2012 and 2014, four meetings of the focal points appointed by the Governments of the signatory countries were held:

At these meetings, the countries adopted the following founding documents:

• Road map
• Plan of Action
• Lima Vision
• Priority Action Lines for Capacity-Building and Cooperation
• San José Content
• Santiago Decision

In addition, during this time, two working groups were created to advance the discussions (Working Group I on Capacity-Building and Cooperation and Working Group II on Access Rights and Regional Instrument). Such working groups met fourteen times and concluded their mandate in November 2014.

More information on the meetings of the working groups (2012-2014) can be found below:

With the Santiago Decision of November 2014, the countries began the negotiating phase of the regional agreement, thereby creating a Negotiating Committee that would substitute the meetings of the focal points and the two working groups.