ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS: ANALYSIS OF THE REGULATIONS IN ARGENTINE AND TUCUMAN SOIL IN THE LIGHT OF THE ESCAZÚ AGREEMENT

Abstract

The Escazú Agreement contains provisions referring to access to justice in environmental matters. Its entry into force implies that our local legal system, both national legislation and provincial Rite Codes, must comply with internationally contemplated standards, at the risk of incurring international responsibility. It becomes necessary then, to carry out an exhaustive, descriptive and comparative analysis of the provisions of the Agreement, in order to determine the degree of compliance with them in our legal system in order to identify the legislative reforms that should be adopted to ensure their integrity. Likewise, considering that the economic aspect is one of the main obstacles to access to justice, emphasis will be placed on it. In this order of ideas, the benefit of gratuity will be analysed as a tool aimed at alleviating the structural inequality that occurs among defendants in environmental causes. The characteristics of environmental law and the incompetence of guaranteeing its enjoyment as it is a conditioning factor of the other fundamental rights leads us inescapably to conclude that the aforementioned free benefit should not depend on the particular patrimonial situation of the litigant in question.