17 October 2006
INTER-AMERICAN COURT RECOGNISES ACCESS TO INFORMATION RIGHTS
For the first time ever, an international tribunal has recognised access to government-held information as a basic human right. On 11 October 2006, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights confirmed the existence of such a right in a case pitting the Chilean government against three environmental activists who sought information on a controversial logging project, report the Open Society Justice Initiative and Access Info Europe.
These two organisations, along with ARTICLE 19, the Institute for Press and Society (Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, IPYS) and the Mexican group Libertad de Información Mexico, Asociación Civil (LIMAC), filed an amicus curiae brief with the court earlier this year, urging it to rule that the American Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to access information held by public bodies (see http://www.ifex.org/fr/content/view/full/73459/).
In its ruling on the case of "Marcel Claude Reyes and Others v. Chile," the court found that Chile had violated the right to information by failing to provide the information requested in 1998 about the environmental record of Trillium Ltd., a U.S. company backing the logging project. Chile's violations also included its lack of a law and other effective mechanisms to guarantee the right to request and receive information held by government bodies. The court ordered Chile to release the information requested and adopt legal and other measures, including training for public officials, to guarantee an effective process for dealing with information requests, reports Access Info Europe.
"This ruling is about more than just one case in one country," says the Open Society Justice Initiative. "It establishes a precedent that other courts and other countries should now follow." The impact may be felt beyond the Americas. Access Info Europe points to, for example, European countries - such as Spain, Greece, and Italy - which do not have full access to information laws and may now have to consider reforms to respect international standards.
Visit these links:
- ARTICLE 19: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/inter-american-court-a19-foi-amicus-brief.pdf
- IPYS: http://www.ipys.org
- Access Info Europe: http://www.access-info.org/
- Open Society Justice Initiative: http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2?res_id=103448
- American Convention on Human Rights: http://www.cidh.org/Basicos/basic3.htm
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