By Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

A central challenge for policymakers today is not whether the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment exists (hereafter the right to a healthy environment), but how it is realized in practice. The UN General Assembly has recognized this right. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on climate change has highlighted that the effective enjoyment of many human rights depends on a healthy environment. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has recognized the elevated risks that environmental human rights defenders face as well as the the fundamental role they play in strengthening democracy and the rule of law and in tackling the climate emergency.

However, access to information, public participation, and access to justice are not always guaranteed in ways that are meaningful or accessible to all. Still, communities persist in navigating and reshaping these processes – demanding transparency, showing up to decision-making spaces, and seeking accountability.

It is precisely this ongoing pressure and ground-up initiatives that give relevance to environmental democracy treaties such as the Escazú Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Its Conferences of the Parties (COPs), including Escazú Agreement COP4 in March 2026, are not abstract diplomatic gatherings but spaces where tensions between recognition and implementation of the right to a healthy environment and defenders’ rights are confronted, and where legal and governance innovations are co-created between duty-bearers and rights-holders.

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Adopting COP decisions in a biocultural diverse region

After three COPs in Latin America, the convening of COP4 in Nassau, for the first in the Caribbean, reflected both the diversity of the region and a sustained commitment to cooperation towards the realization of the right to a healthy environment for the present and future generations. Having participated in every COP since the Agreement’s adoption, I have seen how, despite shifting agendas, the constant has been a vibrant civil society, including a significant number of youth and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, insisting that rights move from paper to practice.

The diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean itself presents a challenge: how to make a universal right meaningful across very different social, ecological, and cultural realities. Yet, this diversity is also where biocultural rights come alive. LAC hosts rich biodiversity such as the Amazon and Mesoamerican rainforests, the Andean mountains, and the Caribbean coral reefs. Across the region, communities interpret and enact the right to a healthy environment in ways that reflect specific socio-ecological contexts, grounding abstract concepts and principles in lived experience and intergenerational concerns.

In Nassau, these dynamics were visible beyond the formal spaces of COP4. A city often framed through the lens of resorts and cruise tourism can obscure the realities of those who live there. Beyond the tourist industry, another Nassau persists – place-based, relational, and deeply connected to its ecological and cultural roots. At a family-run hotel where I stayed, conversations moved easily from Bahamian art depicting marine life and calling for its protection to upcoming elections, illustrating how environmental awareness, cultural expression, and political life are intertwined in everyday interactions.

At the policy level, COP4 grappled with enduring challenges, including pollutant release and transfer registers, public participation in environmental decision making, gender equality, access to justice, and the protection of the rights of environmental human rights defenders – areas where implementation gaps remain. Yet, the decisions the COP took to address these issues also signal how sustained advocacy – particularly from youth, women groups, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities – continues to shape regional commitments. The recognition of the intersecting identities of defenders in various COP4 side events, for instance, did not emerge in a vacuum; it reflects ongoing struggles to ensure that those most at risk are seen and their rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled, strengthening the impact of Article 9 and the Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Contextualizing the right to a healthy environment

Climate change introduces another layer of inequality. Rising temperatures disproportionately affect those living in poverty, older persons, and children. In this context, beach access is essential for the health and well-being for those without access to cooling infrastructure.

Yet in Nassau, as in other parts of the Caribbean, such access is not evenly distributed. Resort developments often restrict entry to coastal areas, effectively closing off spaces that are vital for daily life.

Still, people continue to seek and defend access to the beach and to the livelihoods that depend directly on marine ecosystems. At sunrise, before COP sessions began, public beaches filled with quiet but persistent acts of use and presence – people walking, exercising, entering the sea. An older woman selling handmade jewelry crafted from fish bones spoke of the relief and joy she found in the water on hot days. These are not trivial activities; they are expressions of the right to a healthy environment in practice – claims to a safe climate, to clean air, and to the restorative presence of the ocean.

Environmental pressures linked to tourism economies pose further challenges, particularly in small island contexts where ecosystems are fragile and freshwater is limited. Cruise ships I saw anchored off Nassau symbolized both economic dependence and environmental strain. On the beaches located farther away from the curated resort environments, handwritten signs read “no dump” and “no litter.” These signs were reminders that these spaces are not disposable margins but lived territories where Bahamians assert responsibility, dignity, and rights. They are places where people actively defend their island from toxic pollution and from being treated as sacrifice zones, insisting on its value as a site of life, health, and community.

Structural economic dependencies in the Caribbean present another challenge, particularly in relation to food systems. The Bahamas relies significantly on imported food, reflecting broader vulnerabilities. Yet, this dependence coexists with everyday practices that sustain local connections to nature. Advice from a taxi driver to eat where Bahamians eat led me to a network of small vendors offering coconuts, fresh juices, plantains, and seafood. These are not just transactions; they are expressions of how ecosystems continue to support livelihoods and culture. Even within constrained systems, people maintain and value locally rooted forms of production and consumption, giving substance to this dimension of the right to a healthy environment.

Finally, historical inequalities remain deeply embedded in present-day realities. In Nassau, its physical landscape reflects the legacies of colonialism, from statues of British figures to Pompey Square, where the story of Pompey’s resistance is commemorated – part of the longer trajectory leading to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. These histories continue to shape whose voices are heard – and the obstacles and possibilities for rights to be realized in practice. They also point to enduring traditions of resistance. The struggles that led to emancipation resonate with contemporary efforts by communities and biosphere defenders who claim their human rights and the rights of nature even when facing serious risks.

Across these contexts, the pattern is unmistakable. The challenge is not only the gap between recognition and implementation, but the risk of overlooking how much is already being done by those most affected. People are not waiting for their rights to be delivered to them – they are exercising them, defending them, and in so doing giving them meaning. For lawmakers and policymakers, the task involves recognizing and supporting the scaling of these efforts, ensuring that the right to a healthy environment is not only affirmed in principle but realized in practice.

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Claudia Ituarte-Lima, PhD, is a thematic leader on human rights and environment and senior researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law(RWI) as well as Principal Investigator of Defendbio. She is also Director of the Global Network for Human Rights and Environment.