In recent years the links between poverty and the environment have been a key concern of UNEP. Studies clearly demonstrate how important environmental factors are in the fight against poverty. If we fail to integrate ecosystem usage and protection in national, regional and global poverty reduction strategies they will be doomed to failure.

Clear link
In a major UNEP initiative seeking to establish links between the Millennium Development Goals, the rule of law, and the development and implementation of environmental law, more than 100 chief justices and senior judges – including 32 chief justices – from some 67 countries representing all regions and legal systems of the world gathered in Johannesburg in August 2002 on the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to participate in a Global Judges Symposium on Sustainable Development and the Role of Law. They there unequivocally affirmed their commitment to the pledge made by world leaders in the Millennium Declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000 to spare no effort to free all of humanity – above all our children and grandchildren – from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities, with resources no longer sufficient for their needs. They drew a clear link between poverty and the environment, recognizing that the poor are the most affected by environmental degradation and that, therefore, there is an urgent need to strengthen their capacity – and that of their representatives – to defend environmental rights. The judges will work towards ensuring that the weaker sections of society are not prejudiced by environmental degradation and are enabled to enjoy their right to live in a social and physical environment that respects and promotes their dignity.

The judges emphasized that the rule of law is not an abstract legal notion but fundamental to ensuring the sustainable use of the Earth’s resources within its carrying capacity. They unanimously declared that the fragile state of the global environment requires the judiciary, as the guardian of the rule of law, boldly and fearlessly to implement and enforce applicable international and national laws. These will help alleviate poverty, sustain an enduring civilization, and ensure that the present generation enjoys and improves the quality of life of all peoples without compromising the inherent rights and interests of succeeding ones.

The judges recognized the key role that they play in integrating the human values set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration – freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility – into global civilization, and committed to translating them into action through strengthening respect for the rule of law at all levels.

Crucial partner
The judiciary is clearly a crucial partner in developing, interpreting, implementing and enforcing environmental law. It plays a key role in promoting sustainable development, by balancing environmental, social and developmental considerations in judicial decisions. Courts of law in many countries have demonstrated sensitivity to promoting the rule of law in sustainable development through judgements and pronouncements. More than 200 of these judgements have been summarized and published in the UNEP Compendium of Summaries of Environment-related Cases.

UNEP’s work focusing on the judiciary began in 1996 with a modest meeting of magistrates from some ten African countries. Spurred by the growing support for this programme among judges from all regions of the world, UNEP went on to convene, in association with several global, regional and national partners, seven regional chief justices symposia on environmental law, sustainable development and the role of the judiciary. These took place in South Asia (1997), Southeast Asia (1999), Latin America (2000), the Caribbean (2001), the Pacific (2002), Eastern Europe (2003) and the Arab countries (2004). A meeting of chief justices of the francophone countries will be convened in Paris on 3 and 4 February 2005, in partnership with the President of the Cour de Cassation of France and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.

Major initiative
The symposium in Johannesburg was a direct result of a call made to the Executive Director of UNEP at the regional chief justices meetings. Its outcome, the Johannesburg Principles on the Role of Law and Sustainable Development, was presented to the United Nations Secretary-General and to the WSSD by its Chair, the Honourable Justice Arthur Chaskalson, Chief Justice of South Africa.

The outcomes of this major UNEP initiative are, in summary:

• The creation of a Global Alliance of Chief Justices and Senior Judges from more than 100 countries, fully supportive of the UNEP Judges Programme, and the commitment to carry out capacity building of judges at the national level with the support of UNEP and its partner agencies.

• The adoption by the UNEP Governing Council of Decision 22/17IIA on Follow-up to the Global Judges Symposium focusing on capacity building in the area of environmental law, which called on the Executive Director of UNEP to carry out a programme of work aimed at ‘improving the capacity of those involved in the process of promoting, implementing, developing and enforcing environmental law at the national and local levels such as judges, prosecutors, legislators and other relevant stakeholders’.

• Creating Regional Judges Forums for the Environment in Europe, the Pacific, southern Africa, eastern and West Africa, the Arab States, the Caribbean and the francophone countries in Africa.

• Developing and publishing a UNEP Judges Handbook and other manuals and case law books, in response to a call from judiciaries of the developing world for urgently required books on environmental law.

• Mobilizing a consortium of partners for the UNEP capacity-building programme on environmental law of judiciaries, prosecutors and other legal stakeholders. Organizations and institutions that have collaborated with UNEP include UNDP, World Bank Institute, United Nations University, UNITAR, IUCN and its Academy of Environmental Law, Commonwealth Secretariat, Francophone Secretariat, Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association, Asia Foundation, Hanns Seidel Foundation, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), South Asian Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP), Environmental Law Foundation of the United Kingdom, Environmental Law Institute, and Centre for International Environmental Law.

• Commencing systematic training of judges through national judicial institutions with the support of UNEP and partner agencies. In 2004 national judges training programmes were held in South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos – and plans are under way to hold similar national training workshops in more than 30 countries during 2005.