World Top Judges Resolved to Enforce Environment Laws for Better Earth

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 19, 2002

World Top Judges Resolved to Enforce Environment Laws for Better Earth

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World's most powerful judges met here Sunday to launch an international effort to strengthen the implementation of environment-related laws on the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

A total of 121 judges and senior government officials from 61 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North Americaare to take action at the first global judicial assembly with a focus on the environmental laws.

As a host of the symposium, Arthur Chaskalson, Chief Justice ofSouth Africa, said at the opening address: "We are the first groupto meet. We will be the first to be heard; the first to formulate a resolution. We have a head start and should take advantage of that."

The judges are going to put forward the presentation of the Johannesburg Principles for further strengthening national level implementation of environmental law in the context of sustainable development in the first-decade of the 21st century at the three-day global judges symposium.

Specialists believe that convening the symposium in Johannesburg, immediately before the WSSD, is likely to draw maximum international attention to this important initiative and enhance prospects for enlisting the interest and support of the donor community for implementing outcome of the symposium, especially in regard to capacity building.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, said that in its journey from Stockholm, celebrating the passage of 30 years this year, UNEP has given leadership to the progressive development of international environmental law and actively supporting developing countries andnewly independent states in the formulation and implementation of environmental law regimes.

He said that UNEP tries to mobilize the full potential of the judiciaries in all countries around the world in vindicating civilization's shared interest in a healthy and secure environment,a world strongly founded on the rule of law with the judiciary as its guardian through the interpretation, enhancement and enforcement of environmental law.

The symposium is being convened with the following four purposes: *providing a global perspective to the importance of therole that the judiciary plays in promoting sustainable developmentthrough the rule of law at national level; *enhancing the profile and the level of understanding of the different approaches that are taken by the judiciary at national level to implement the vital elements of governance; *laying a foundation for a well structured, co-ordinated and sustained program of support for capacity strengthening of national judiciaries around the world, especially in the developing countries and countries with economies in transition; *presenting the recommendations of the symposium on strengthening the capacity of the national judiciaries for promoting the rule of law in the area of sustainable development to the UN WSSD summit.

The overall objective is to foster a better-informed and more active judiciary advancing the rule of the law in the area of sustainable development.

This will be achieved in two ways: through information sharing and awareness enrichment at the symposium especially among judges from different regions of the world and also through the triggering of follow up activities under a plan of action flowing from the symposium.

A key part of the talks centers on how to take forward access to the information, public participation and access to justice as enshrined in the 1992 Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.

South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma spoke highly of the symposium, saying "your meeting here as chief justices and senior judges from all corners of the world presents a rare opportunity to reaffirm that sustainable development is in essence a matter ofsocial justice."

"We trust that your important deliberations will re-assert the importance of the judiciary and the rule of law, in issues of global, regional and national environmental governance," he added.

He said that sustainable development issues are often rooted inlegal and governance related matters,adding "your debates on the link between policy-making and the legal interpretation thereof will be useful indeed."

According to UNEP, there are more than 500 international and regional agreements, treaties and deals covering everything from the protection of the ozone layer to the conservation of the oceans and seas.

However, the world-wide effort to crack down on pollution and environmentally-damaging developments is being undermined partly due to weaknesses in legal systems in many countries.

These weakness are particularly acute in many developing countries and nations of the former Soviet Union where lack of resources, the difficulties of turning international treaties intonational laws and difficult economic conditions are making it harder for cases to reach or succeed in the courts," he said.

The field of law has been the poor relation in the world-wide effort to deliver a cleaner, healthier and ultimately fairer world.Almost all countries have national environmental laws.

But unless these are complied with, unless they are enforced, then they are little more than symbols, tokens paper tigers. This is an issue affecting billions of people who are effectively beingdenied their rights and one of not only national but regional and global concern.

Toxic pollutants from Asia, Europe and North America contaminating the Arctic, the greenhouse gases of the industrialized regions triggering droughts or the melting of glaciers in the less industrialized ones, and the regional build up of 'hazes' or ' Brown Clouds' as is evidenced across much of Asia.

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