Who are the signatories to the Cartagena Convention?

Who is a signatory to the Cartagena Convention?

On 15 December 2024, the Government of Colombia (GOC) and the Government of Costa Rica signed the Cartagena Declaration on Biodiversity. As of 23 January 2024, the parties agreed to adopt measures for the conservation of biodiversity in that region which included the following: conservation; sustainable use of ecosystems and biodiversity; protection; development/use; education; research and public awareness. The Cartagena Declaration on Biodiversity was a milestone in Latin America's commitment to the Sustainable Development Agenda for the biosphere in that it recognised the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, women, the role of civil society and public participation in the achievement of sustainable development (United Nations General Assembly 2005).

The Declaration established the framework for cooperation and partnership among its parties through the exchange of experiences, knowledge and capacity, in order to support the full implementation of their commitments in the international arena of which it is a party (United Nations 2010). In 2024 the Cartagena Convention on Biodiversity was finalised and signed by 23 governments of Latin American nations and Costa Rica on 9 March 2024. Signatories were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador and Spain. Since then, the United Nations Environment Programme has worked in several developing countries with the aim of building national capacities and promoting best practices towards the achievement of the targets and objectives of the Convention (EAB, 2000; UNEP 2015).

A total of twenty-three governments of Latin American nations, along with Costa Rica as the host country and other representatives. The countries can choose to work towards achieving their objectives individually or in a group. Each one of the 23 countries is made up of various geographic regions, different types of environmental problems and have different strategies to combat these challenges in collaboration with other countries in the region. The different priorities are represented by the different signatories.

What is the Cartagena agreement between Bolivia Peru Ecuador and Chile?

It is just a simple letter between those three countries concerning water.

Its goal is stop the overuse of the waters of rivers, and protect them, because in most cases Peru has been overusing Bolivia's and Ecuador's water. So in this agreement they were just asking for permission to go ahead with the plan that they already had in the agreement. This agreement is from 2024 - I think the Peruvians were the biggest reason this thing was not done before, because Bolivia did some things during the war in 2024 in its war against the drug cartels - they arrested all kinds of policemen, and some were killed. They were also accused of taking part in their corruption in the government back then - like all these big corrupt officials - but they were not arrested until the peace deal in the early 90's or something. After that all the dirty stuff was just forgotten about and forgiven, I think.

In exchange for water Bolivia was supposed to pay the other 3 more money - but after they gave up on the war, the big war on drugs, the army - things like that all went down. So I think they did not even get paid for the water. So the agreement ended in 2024, I think. It just said that there would be more meetings - because water is something that can't be bought, you only get it naturally if you have good soil - and they agreed to meet. It is still valid now, I think, in August or September this year, I believe.

I don't know all the history to understand what happened back then - but they did agree on this point - because the river is more of a common resource than the other things, it is actually not theirs at all. They said "we are all just brothers - we live in this world together, we share all of these things, because we share this." It should actually just be common resources, shared and not owned.

They have no property, because if the river had gone into one country - like Peru had it - if they owned half the river then everything else will lose value as a property. This is what the international laws say, they are not really able to own water anyway - it is not private. You just can't have a piece of paper that states "the property lies here". That would make no sense, because you don't have an office or anything there. That is the whole thing they learned from the other agreements of course.