By Lalanath DeSilva

On May 6, 1998, three activists in Chile asked their government what it had done to comply with national law requiring environmental review before approving a $200-million logging project in Tierra del Fuego. The activists wanted to know whether the national Foreign Investment Committee had seen any evidence that the project would use environmentally sustainable practices. After years of review, The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled this month that the activists were entitled to receive the information. It is the first time an International Court has recognized that citizens have a general right of access to information held by government. It may change the world.

The Court’s decision is based on Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the freedom of thought and expression. At present, 24 of the 35 Organization of American States member states are parties to the Convention. (Article 13 is almost identical to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by nearly every nation.)  Many courts around the world had recognized that the freedom of expression contained a right to "seek" and "receive" information. But this new decision expands that right to include a general right of access to information. The Inter-American court, which held a hearing on the case last April, ruled that Chile had violated the right to information not only by refusing to provide the information, but also for not having a law that guarantees the right of persons to request and receive public information. There is now little doubt that growing international trend recognizes the existence of a general citizen’s right of access to information.

WRI’s Access Initiative and Partnership for Principle 10 programs welcome the International Court’s Decision. Years of work with partners in more than 40 countries to document the state of access to information about environmental decision-making has shown us that robust citizen access to information means decisions are more likely to consider the long-term interests of those citizens, particularly when livelihoods are affected. The Access Initiative methodology, used since 2001 to assess environmental governance in countries around the world, grew from the principle that access to information, participatory rights and access to justice are fundamental human rights.

The decided case was brought by TERRAM, an NGO in Chile. TERRAM is one of the civil society organizations in the Chilean Access Initiative coalition (TAI Chile), which itself is part of the Latin American regional TAI network. WRI serves as the secretariat for the global TAI network.

As of this writing, Chile has only a presidential decree, and not a national law, generally guaranteeing citizen access to information. The Chilean Congress has allowed the previous law, in effect in 1998, to lapse. The activists, undaunted, are still waiting for the information they requested. We can only hope that the Court’s decision means that requesters -- everywhere -- may now have an easier time.

Further information:

Inter-Press Service article (subscription): http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34932

Editor & Publisher: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003254197

Access Info Europe: http://www.access-info.org/data/File/Rio%20Condor%20Case%20Study.doc

Lalanath DeSilva
Senior Associate
Institutions and Governance Program
October 30, 2006