NGOs and Youth v. State of Costa Rica

On September 21, 2023, the Strategic Committee for Youth Participation and Advocacy submitted a request for information to the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) regarding Costa Rica’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). After almost three months without a response from MINAE, the young people filed an Amparo before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica. The plaintiff’s main arguments are that the State violated the right of access to public information on environmental matters by reserving information related to the baseline - of the NDC and the lack of transparency regarding eight thematic areas: mobility and transportation, development and land use planning, energy, forests, and terrestrial biodiversity, oceans and water resources, action for climate empowerment, finance and policies, and climate change strategies. The plaintiffs won, and the Court ordered the Ministry of Environment and Energy to prepare a document with the requested information. However, the plaintiffs considered the document incomplete and lacking transparency. They were dissatisfied with the information provided due to the omission of transcendental issues previously raised. After a detailed analysis of official documents, it was estimated that the implementation of the NDCs is only 2%, failing to observe the Right to Environmental Information established in the Escazu Agreement. The Strategic Committee for Youth Participation and Advocacy is currently evaluating the possibility of continuing with the litigation to make this incidence visible, since according to the Biennial Transparency Report (which is a basic document on transparency of environmental information in terms of the Paris Agreement) the three fundamental pillars on which it is based - mitigation, progress in the NDCs and adaptation - remain unfulfilled in the country.