The First Asian Judges Symposium on Environment was held in 2010 at ADB Headquarters in Manila, co-hosted by ADB, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and the United Nation’s Environment Program (UNEP). At the symposium, the Chief Justice of Indonesia and the Chief Justice of the Philippines, together with about 110 senior justices and other participants, called for an Asian Judges Network on Environment to generate knowledge on environmental challenges among judiciaries and the legal community in the region, strengthen the capacity of judges to decide environmental cases, and share experiences in dealing with those challenges though laws and cases.
In response, ADB has since then supported the senior judiciary across the Asia Pacific region, including by hosting sub-regional roundtables: the ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtable on Environment in Jakarta, Indonesia (2011), Melaka, Malaysia (2012), and Bangkok, Thailand (2013), and the South Asian Justices’ Roundtable in Bhurban, Pakistan (2012) and Thimpu, Bhutan (2013). It will support the sub-regional roundtables in Viet Nam and Sri Lanka in 2014. In 2012, ADB also supported the participation of delegations of Asian Judges to the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Sustainability in Rio de Janiero, and the Global Forum for Law, Justice and Development in Washington D.C.; and co-hosted the Judicial Colloquium on Biodiversity in Hyderabad, India, and in 2013 led in hosting the Symposium on Combating Wildlife Crime in Bangkok, Thailand.
ADB has also worked on programs with national judiciaries in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam. These events led to the Jakarta Common Vision for ASEAN Judiciaries, the Burbhan Declaration, a draft ASEAN Memorandum of Understanding, and the Bhutan Declaration. The experiences shared across the region has been collected in several publications as well as consolidated to be made available online, together with an initial collection of the environmental laws of Asian jurisdictions. With this progress, the Asian Judges Network on Environment will be formally launched at the Second Asian Judges Symposium (“Symposium”).
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