Deterioration of the Earth’s environment increasingly threatens the natural resource base and processes upon which all life on Earth depends. UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2003 highlights the scope and variety of the problems. Over one billion people currently lack safe drinking water and sanitation, making waterborne diseases one of the leading causes of death, especially among children in poor countries. Two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in areas of water shortages where, increasingly, desertification threatens the food supply. UN Habitat 2003 reported that more than 180 million people in Africa live in fragile areas where they compete for water and land. In marine waters, nearly three-quarters of all commercial fish stocks are being harvested faster than they can reproduce (FAO, 2002). More than 500,000 people in Asia die every year from diseases related to air pollution (WHO, 2003). Species are becoming extinct at an unprecedented rate, taking with them potential yet unknown sources of medicines, nutrition and other benefits. Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, predicted in 2003 that the global economic loss due to extreme weather events would reach US$30 billion annually by 2050. In sum, humans are rapidly exceeding the carrying capacity of the environment.

Without strong and multifaceted action by every person, the biosphere may become unable to sustain human life. At the least, coming generations will suffer deprivation and hardship unless current patterns of production, consumption and waste management are dramatically altered. Sustainable development needs to become the watchword and policy of all public agencies and officials and the responsibility of every person.

This handbook is intended to enable national judges in all types of tribunals in both civil law and common law jurisdictions to identify environmental issues coming before them and to be aware of the range of options available to them in interpreting and applying the law. It seeks to provide judges with a practical guide to basic environmental issues that are likely to arise in litigation. It includes information on international and comparative environmental law and references to relevant cases. Judges in each particular country will supplement this overview with more detailed information drawn from national experiences, laws and traditions.

The publication of the Judicial handbook on Environmental Law by UNEP is a response to the request made by the chief justices and other senior judges from some 100 countries who participated in eleven regional judges Symposiums on environmental law convened by UNEP during the period 1995-2002. The request was reiterated in the conclusions and recommendations that were submitted to the World Summit on Sustainable Development by the 2002 Global Judges Symposium held in Johannesburg.

The publication was developed through judicial consultative meetings that were convened by UNEP in Rome (June 2003), London (August 2003) and New York (June 2004).

At the request of UNEP, the distinguished jurist and former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Christopher G. Weeramantry, prepared an outline of the proposed publication, which was placed before the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association Triennial Conference held in Malawi in August 2003.

There it was discussed and approved as a sound basis for the preparation of the Judicial Handbook. The work on the preparation of the Handbook proceeded thereafter on this basis.

At the London judicial consultative meeting, two distinguished Professors of Environmental Law, Dinah Shelton and Alexandre Kiss, were requested to prepare the draft of the publication for judicial review by a team of eminent judges from developed and developing countries. The draft was revised and finalized by the Judicial Editorial Board at the New York consultative meeting held on 2-4 June, 2004, with the able research and editorial assistance of Melinda Mannheim.

It must be appreciated that the specific character of environmental problems will necessarily differ from one country to another and that environmental legislation and case law will thus also differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Moreover, because of cultural variation and differences in socio-economic conditions, judges will at times bring different perspectives to the particular environmental problem before them. While this is so, judges may nonetheless find valuable instruction on how related matters have been addressed and managed in other jurisdictions.

The handbook is organized in two major sections. Part A, entitled “General Framework,” reviews some of the fundamental principles and approaches inherent in most environmental legal regimes and focuses on the role of the courts in furthering the rule of law in the environmental arena. Part B, entitled, “Principal Areas of Environmental Law,” offers a more detailed look at the features of the protection programmes that have developed around specific environmental and natural resource concerns (e.g., air, water, waste, endangered species, etc.), and is intended to serve as an initial reference for judges who encounter a particular kind of environmental case.

In short, the handbook attempts to identify a common core of law and policy most relevant to the world’s judiciary, in the hope that judges might be better equipped to discharge their key role in breathing life into those environmental requirements upon which the world’s collective heritage depends.

Klaus Toepfer
Executive Director – UNEP

*Judicial Handbook - Download