Top Judges to Fortify Environmental Law Enforcement

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, August 16, 2002 - Criminals in many parts of the world are getting away with trade in illegal timber, endangered species and hazardous wastes mainly as a result of the lax way in which national and international laws covering these and other environmental crimes are implemented and enforced.

To address this problem, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has invited high level judges from around the world to a three day symposium in Johannesburg in advance of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Chief Justice of South Africa Arthur Chaskalson (Photo courtesy Constitutional Court of South Africa)

The symposium brings together chief justices and other senior judges from North America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as judges from the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals.

Sometimes law enforcement is effective. Here, Indian officials display confiscated skins of endangered tigers and leopards. (Photo courtesy TRAFFIC)

One goal of the symposium is to strengthen the implementation of environmentally related laws, another is to develop a network of judicial experts who will exchange ideas and judgements in the field of environmental and development law.

The symposium is expected to endorse an action plan that will lead to better training of all sectors of society involved in environmental law - judges, prosecutors, magistrates, customs officers and the police.

Weaknesses in environmental laws and their enforcement are acute in many developing countries and nations of the former Soviet Union, UNEP said in a statement Thursday.

Vyacheslav Lebedev, chairman of the Russian Supreme Court was asked by Russian lawmakers and human rights activists to reconsider the treason conviction of Grigory Pasko by a Military Collegium. On June 25, the Supreme Court upheld the collegium's ruling. (Photo courtesy Bellona Foundation)

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

The judges will look at global and regional ways of strengthening public involvement in environment decision making.

Judge Scott C. Fulton is one of four judges on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Appeals Board. (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)

The Global Symposium seeks to build on six Regional Judicial Symposia held in Africa (1996), South Asia (1997), South East Asia (1999), Latin America (2000), the Caribbean (2001) and the Pacific (2002).

"I am convinced that the wisdom and stature of the senior judges, gathering here in Johannesburg on the eve of WSSD where world leaders are meeting to chart a new and more sustainable course for planet Earth, will give us an action plan that will see improvements for people not only in developing countries but for everyone, everywhere," Toepfer said.