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Environmental Law Journal becomes part of Scielo Chile

The publication edited by the Environmental Law Center will be part of an open access collection of Chilean scientific journals in all areas of knowledge.

The Environmental Law Journal, edited by the Environmental Law Center of the Law School of the University of Chile, was admitted to be part of the SciELO - Chile Scientific Electronic Library.

SciELO - Chile is an open access collection of texts from Chilean scientific journals, from all areas of knowledge, which predominantly publish articles resulting from scientific research, and which uses peer review of the manuscripts they receive, which show a growing performance in the indicators of compliance with the indexing criteria.

"We are very pleased with this recognition, which is the result of an effort of continuous improvement of the editorial processes developed by the editorial team, which has resulted in the growing increase in the quality of the articles published over the years," said the director of the Journal, Prof. Valentina Durán Medina, adding "we are grateful for the support of the Faculty, which through its Dean, Prof. Pablo Ruiz-Tagle, and the Journals Program of the Research Department, headed by Prof. Daniel Álvarez, has provided permanent support to the work of the journal."

"Once the collaboration agreement between the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile and the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) is signed, the full incorporation of the journal to this collection will take place, starting in 2022" explained the editor Jorge Ossandón Rosales.

This good news is in addition to the admission, in 2020, of the Environmental Law Journal to the SCOPUS database.

As a result, in 2022 the Environmental Law Journal will already be indexed in Scopus, Redib, DOAJ and Latindex, in addition to ScIELO, with the support of SISIB and the Journals Program of the Research Department of the Law School of the Universidad of Chile.

It should be noted that Issue 16 of this biannual journal will be published on December 31.

 

The legal aid in environmental matters: challenges regarding the negotiation process of the regional treaty on access rights to environmental information, participation and justice

Authors

  • Gabriela Burdiles London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Leonardo Cofré Edinburgh University

Abstract

The negotiation process of a regional instrument on access rights in Latin America and the Caribbean has included in its current draft a provision on access to justice in environmental matters (Article 9). It expressly provides the obligation of States to have free legal assistance mechanisms. In this paper we will try to develop this obligation, reflecting on how a legal aid system in environmental matters should be designed. To this end, the specific characteristics of access to justice in environmental matters will be explained. Then we will analyse the design options for public legal assistance, both in gen-eral terms, and legal aid in environmental matters, referring to certain Latin American experiences. Finally, some reflections will be presented as to which model (judicare or staff) is most adequate to respond to the challenges of environmental legal defense.

Keywords:

access to environmental justice, legal assistance, Principle 10, access rights in environmental matters