Guinea, Africa- Guinea-Bissau has signed the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, which protects the environmental human right of everyone to live in an environment and climate that is adequate and suitable for their well-being.
The convention also gives citizens the right to partake in environmental activities, including policy-making.
Guinea-Bissau has become the first non-European country to go into partnership on human rights and the environment, with the United Nations, becoming the 47th country to do this.
The Convention and its Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers are “the only legally binding global instruments on environmental democracy.
Guinea-Bissau, a Portuguese-speaking West African country of about two million people, is the first state “outside the pan-European region” to do so, said Olga Algayerova, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
“Guinea-Bissau hopes to take advantage of the Convention’s instruments to fight climate change and promote its biodiversity… by allowing the public to participate in the decision-making process and to have access to justice when their environmental rights are violated,” said its Environment Minister, Viriato Luis Soares Cassama.
“This West African State is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change,” according to the UNECE.
It is threatened by flooding and increased salinization of coastal areas, which affects agriculture and can lead to shortages of drinking water, among other adverse effects.
