Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. However, the region has also experienced significant environmental change, which threatens economic growth and the development that it has achieved. The environmental challenges of the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are now attributed to climate change (which results in increased hazardous natural disasters), threats to the region’s forests from unsustainable and illegal logging and wildfires; threats to biodiversity from habitat destruction and illegal wildlife trade, and uncontrolled urbanization that affect development planning and cause transborder pollution.
The judiciary plays a critical role in managing and constraining these challenges. Hence, the Supreme Administrative Court of Thailand is hosting this Third ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtable on the Environment—the regional judicial meeting that aims to expand collaboration and cooperation to enhance the judiciary’s role in developing and enforcing environmental law in the region.
