The role of the judiciary to achieve environmental conservation was recognised in the last decade by Agenda 21. Paragraph 8.26 states that “efforts to provide an effective legal framework for sustainable development should be oriented towards improving the legal-institutional capacities of countries to cope with national problems of governance and effective law-making, and law-applying in the field of environment and sustainable development.” Most recently, the Johannesburg Principles have emphasised that “the fragile state of the global environment requires the judiciary, as the guardian of the Rule of Law, to boldly and fearlessly implement and enforce applicable international and national laws ... ” The necessity of further strengthening the rule of law and its complementary national frameworks, especially each country’s ability to effectively implement and enforce existing environmental law through national authorities and adequate judicial institutions, has been repeated in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.
At the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) held in Bangkok, Thailand, from the 17th to the 25th of November 2004, the IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP), through its Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) and the Environmental Law Centre (ELC), held a two-day major event – “Judiciary Day” – to showcase the role of the judiciary in upholding the rule of law. This report is made up from speeches and papers resulting from this conference.
