The Government of Piñera has again mistreated our country, made the decision not to ratify the Escazu Agreement. This is extremely serious and contradictory, as Chile was a driver of this agreement in its in the beginning, actively participating in its elaboration. This rejection is incomprehensible in the eyes of the world and in the face of our environmental reality. The President of the Republic himself, in his message to the UN, called for the face of climate change and was left in words only.
The problem facing our environment is global in nature, it does not recognize borders. Therefore, any obligation that national states take reciprocally to agree on principles and mechanisms that limit the impacts of their economies is a major step forward. To have a vision for the future is to join regional efforts to address common problems, this principle should guide our foreign policy.
To face the problems we have as humanity we must collaborate, but the opposite has happened. President Piñera is on the path of Bolsonaro and Trump, an issist denialism. Detaching itself from the international system is not the path Chile needs.
The Government’s argument for rejecting the Escazu Agreement is simple: the defence of private investment, aimed at the exploitation of natural resources. By not subscribing to it, a defense of the extractivist model is made, which tends to concentrate wealth and does not generate development for the country. It is a lie that the national economy or employment is being defended, an economic model based on inequality and the zero creation of added value to our production is being defended.
The fight for the defense of the environment directly affects the extractivist model that our country has. Thus, the argument put forward by the Government, that the articles and principles of the agreement were vague, vague and do not fit with our legal order, is nothing more than an excuse. It is impossible to have an agreement in which all the legal systems of the signatory countries fit, placing it as a condition is an absurdity that only hides that President Piñera does not have the political will to prioritize the environmental problem, over extractivist foreign investment.
But the most distressing thing is the reasons given in relation to the protection of environmental activists. They do not want to recognize the risk they face, in their struggle they face great economic interests that do not hesitate to occupy violence to impose themselves on communities. Arguing that recognizing risks and committing to their defence would be affecting the criterion of equality before the law is frankly an act of cynicism. To deny the vulnerability of a person facing the interests of large corporations is just to affect equality before the law.
The vulnerability of the thousands of environmental activists in Chile and the continent is not to be recognized, because of the interests that the Government defends. All of this is most inexplicable when the UN Secretary-General notes that “… human rights violations become more frequent. In 2018, of the 164 globally recorded killings of environmental defenders, many of whom were indigenous, 83 took place in the region (Latin America).”
The environmental problem is an issue that has a direct relationship with HRDs, both because of the vulnerability of environmental defenders and the harm to the health of entire communities. President Piñera, by not subscribing to Escazu, is taking a path in which he privileges the interests and gains of the powerful over the rights and well-being of the majority.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
