Protocol on the Rights of Women 73 Article 18: Right to a healthy and sustainable environment 1. Women shall have the right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment. 2. States parties shall take all appropriate measures to: (a) ensure greater participation of women in the planning, management and preservation of the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources at all levels; (b) promote research and investment in new and renewable energy sources and appropriate technologies, including information technologies and facilitate women’s access to, and participation in their control; (c) protect and enable the development of women’s indigenous knowledge systems; (d) regulate the management, processing, storage and disposal of domestic waste; (e) ensure that proper standards are followed for the storage, transportation and disposal of toxic waste. Article 19: Right to sustainable development Women shall have the right to fully enjoy their right to sustainable development. In this connection, the states parties shall take all appropriate measures to: (a) introduce the gender perspective in the national development planning procedures; (b) ensure participation of women at all levels in the conceptualisation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation of development policies and programmes; (c) promote women’s access to and control over productive resources such as land and guarantee their right to property; (d) promote women’s access to credit, training, skills development and extension services at rural and urban levels in order to provide women with a higher quality of life and reduce the level of poverty among women; (e) take into account indicators of human development specifically relating to women in the elaboration of development policies and programmes; and (f) ensure that the negative effects of globalisation and any adverse effects of the implementation of trade and economic policies and programmes are reduced to the minimum for women. Article 20: Widows’ rights States parties shall take appropriate legal measures to ensure that widows enjoy all human rights through the implementation of the following provisions: (a) that widows are not subjected to inhuman, humiliating or degrading treatment; (b) that a widow shall automatically become the guardian and custodian of her children, after the death of her husband, unless this is contrary to the interests and the welfare of the children; (c) that a widow shall have the right to remarry, and in that event, to marry the person of her choice. Article 21: Right to inheritance 1. A widow shall have the right to an equitable share in the inheritance of the property of her husband. A widow shall have the right to continue to live in the matrimonial house. In case of remarriage, she shall retain this right if the house belongs to her or she has inherited it. 2. Women and men shall have the right to inherit, in equitable shares, their parents’ properties.