Climate finance and capacity building

Developed and developing countries are now seeking to mobilize, leverage, de-risk and unlock finance for climate-related projects and capacity building for both adaptation and mitigation. This trend was captured in a January 2018 UN Environment Programme research report developed by King’s College London. The report provides a range of options for law and policy makers in developing countries to choose from when they consider and design legislation and/or other forms of regulation to effectively mobilize public-private finance in the local context.

Providing technical legal assistance and advisory services to countries

An updated version of the Green Customs Guide to Multilateral Environmental Agreements was published in May 2018. The Guide provides an overview of relevant multilateral environmental agreements, their requirements related to trade in environmentally sensitive substances and commodities, and the role of customs officers and border control officers in facilitating legal trade and preventing illegal trade in these substances.

The provision of legal best practices to government officials and related stakeholders

The capacity of members of the judiciary and enforcement officers to enforce environmental laws in Malawi was reinforced through training workshops organized by UN Environment Programme in June 2018. The participants which included 100 judges, magistrates, investigators and prosecutors, developed a training curriculum which it is hoped will enhance environmental law enforcement and leave magistrates better qualified to impose the appropriate sanctions for environmental crimes.

In a bid to increase understanding among Chinese judges and prosecutors on the role they play in global environmental governance, UN Environment Programme, in collaboration with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and ClientEarth, organized a judicial summit from 2 to 5 July 2018 in Beijing. The Summit was attended by 300 judges and 150 prosecutors who adopted the Beijing Declaration. The Beijing Declaration affirms the importance of the judiciary in global environmental governance and outlines areas where judges can play a role in advancing environmental rule of law, such as river basins, nature reserves and human settlements.

Enhancing judicial engagement with environmental law

With a view to strengthening the capacity of Bhutan’s judiciary to adjudicate environmental cases in a speedy, fair and just manner, UN Environment Programme, in partnership with the Asian Development Bank, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Royal Court of Justice of Bhutan, supported a workshop on environmental adjudication held from 18 to 20 July 2018 in Thimphu. Over 50 judges and court officials attended the workshop, which was facilitated by several international experts on environmental law. Participants reviewed Bhutan’s Draft Green Bench Book containing draft rules of procedure for environmental cases and prepared recommendations for possible amendments.

Protecting African Elephants

A biodiversity education program helped to mitigate the conflict between farmers and elephants in Ghana. Now 82 percent of community members accept that elephant conservation is important for enhancing the ecological health of the ecosystem and human well-being.

Capacity building among Kenya Wildlife Service staff on dung sensing techniques in Mt. Kenya, Mt. Elgon, Shimba Hills, Arabuko Sokoke and Mau Forest has improved monitoring of elephants and as a result reduced poaching incidence and restored elephants’ habitats across the tropical forests in Kenya.

A canine department at Entebbe International Airport helped improve tracking, ivory detection and surveillance activities, which has contributed to stronger law enforcement on wildlife conservation, better protection and more effective monitoring of elephants in Uganda.

A mammal count undertaken between Amboseli National Park, Kenya and West Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, has fostered cross-border collaboration between Kenya and Tanzania on wildlife conservation resulting in better human-elephant conflict management among local communities and enhanced protection of elephants.

In August 2018, in Maputo, Mozambique, we held a regional symposium and provided technical assistance to African countries to integrate environmental law into judicial curricula in Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone African judicial training institutes. The gathering saw a meeting of several chief justices, presidents of regional and national courts, heads of environmental tribunals, supreme court judges and heads of judicial training institutes from 39 countries in the African region. A similar training was held in Uganda in March 2018 to support African countries to mainstream course elements on environmental crimes in the training curricula of police and prosecutors in order to enhance their capacity to investigate and prosecute cases.

A training of trainers’ workshop for African environmental law lecturers took place in Machakos, Kenya from 16 to 21 September 2018. We provided technical and financial support for this workshop which was attended by over 50 participants who contributed to the development of an online manual on curriculum development and pedagogical approaches to environmental law education.

Some 60 judges, police prosecutors and state attorneys from Ghana gathered from 22 to 25 October 2018 in Accra and Kumasi at a UN Environment Programme sponsored event to discuss and develop a training curriculum on environmental law for use by the Judicial Training Institute for both judges and police prosecutors. Participants recommended that health and sanitation inspectors, who have prosecutorial powers on environmental matters in Ghana be trained to complement the enforcement and adjudicatory role of judges and police prosecutors.

The Association of Environmental Law Lecturers for the Middle East Universities was launched on the occasion of the 2018 Middle East Environmental Law Scholars Conference held in Doha, from 4 to 5 November 2018. The Conference, which was organized by Qatar National Research Fund and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University with the financial and technical support of UN Environment Programme, brought together environmental law scholars from the region to discuss the state of play of environmental law teaching and to map a way forward in a bid to mainstream and integrate environmental law into the curricula and teaching of environmental law in the Middle East.

In an effort to support judges in Myanmar and Asia Pacific to handle environmental and climate change cases, 200 judges, academics, litigators and civil society members were convened by UN Environment Programme, the Asian Development Bank and the Supreme Court of Myanmar, on the occasion of the Asia Pacific Judicial Conference on Environmental and Climate Change Adjudication 29 to 30 October 2019. Many participants called for the establishment of a global network of environmental law clinics as a mechanism to share best practices and support collaboration.

Progressive development of rule of law

Two meetings were held for government focal-points to assess the last 10 years of the fourth Montevideo Programme for the development of environmental law and to consider proposals for the next 10 years of the Programme. The meetings provided an opportunity for national focal points to comment on the implementation, effectiveness and impact of Montevideo Programme in their countries. At the Nairobi, Kenya meeting held in November 2018, co-chairs for the Montevideo IV drafted and agreed on a working document for the Montevideo V programme, which will guide the identification and implementation of priority actions in the field of environmental law to be undertaken by the United Nations Environment Programme. The feedback from the two meetings will be submitted for validation to the fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly in March 2019.

The First Substantive Session on a Global Pact for the Environment took place at UN Headquarters in Nairobi in January 2019. it a meeting held in September 2018, in New York, by the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group established by the UN General Assembly via resolution 72/277. During the five day meeting of the Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group, Member States argued for and against the need for a global pact on the environment and shared their perspectives on the findings of the gap report of the UN Secretary-General. Many delegations welcomed the report of the UN Secretary-General, while some sought to ensure a wider Member State-led discussion on gaps. Read more...

With our support, the Latin America and Caribbean region adopted on 4 March 2018 the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, known as the Escazu Agreement. The Escazu Agreement is the world’s first treaty on international environmental law to include a specific provision on human rights defenders in environmental matters. It is the first legal instrument to have emerged thus far from the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and grants environmental rights the same legal status as human rights.

A regional symposium organized by UN Environment Programme on greening the judiciaries in Africa led to the launch of the Africa Judicial Educators Network on Environmental Law. It also resulted in the adoption of the Rules and Regulations of the Network, along with the adoption of the Regional Training Curriculum and Manuals on Environmental Law for Judges and Magistrates in Africa, and the Maputo Declaration on Greening Judiciaries in Africa.

Fighting environmental crime

In 2018 we provided technical legal assistance to countries which sought its advice and guidance in the development and review of anti-environmental crime laws. Argentina’s review of its penal code led to the inclusion of wildlife crimes in the draft law that is currently under consideration by Parliament. In the Solomon Islands, regulations under its Wildlife Protection and Management Act of 2017 have since been adopted, and in Eritrea, the Gambia, Lesotho and Somalia draft legislation was developed that meet the minimum requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

A symposium was held on 11 and 12 September in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to address the illegal trade in wildlife through a better understanding of existing sub-regional, regional and international commitments and of the legal reforms that may be required in Central and West Africa to combat wildlife crime in Central Africa. The symposium was organized by the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Illicit Trade in Wildlife and Forest Products, which is chaired by UN Environment Programme. In addition to creating a platform for cross-border and regional dialogue, the Symposium supported improved national dialogue between authorities dealing with natural resource management and wildlife trade and those dealing with prosecution and adjudication of wildlife crimes.

An analysis of the legal challenges surrounding illicit trade in terrestrial wildlife and forest products was published in December 2018. Strengthening legal frameworks for licit and illicit trade in wildlife and forest products: Lessons from the natural resource management, trade regulation and criminal justice sectors is intended for use as a potential tool for aiding identified institutions that are working on or considering ways to better regulate licit and illicit trade in wildlife and forest products.

We supported Argentina in revising its penal code to address concerns relating to the protection of wildlife and criminalize offences against the environment. The draft revisions were discussed at a national meeting for stakeholders engaged in matters of environmental law in the country. Participants developed and approved normative proposals for the revised Criminal Code, and further identified crimes against the environment, in particular crimes against wildlife. As a result, the final draft of the revised Code has incorporated environmental crimes and is presently under consideration the Parliament.

At a meeting jointly organized by the UN Office for Sustainable Development and the UN Environment Programme, in July 2018, in New York, 60 government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations, academia and the UN system, sought ways of embedding the Sustainable Development Goals into national political will. Policy coherence and Multilateral Environmental Agreements were examined in-depth as important pathways to promoting integrated approaches to the SDGs, which are indivisible and closely interlinked.

At an event organized by the Indian Society of Heating, Refrigeration & Air-Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) in November 2018, in Guajarat, India, UN Environment Programme partnered with ISHRAE and ASHRAE to organize workshops on Montreal Protocol, as well as support countries to develop refrigerant management tools for countries operating under Article 5 of the Protocol. UN Environment Programme and ASHRAE have developed work plans towards promoting good refrigerant management practices, which will ensure best outreach and use of refrigerant products and materials developed over the last few years.

UN Environment Programme developed a new global methodology to measure the “number of countries that have mechanisms in place to enhance policy coherence for sustainable development”. Once the methodology will be approved by the Inter Agency Expert Group on SDG Statistics, the indicator will be reclassified as a Tier II indicator. Moreover, an approved methodology will serve as a tool to identify gaps and challenges for countries to improve their policy coherence for sustainable development and will create the opportunity for UN Environment Programme and member states to work together on improving their mechanisms to enhance policy coherence for sustainable development which will enable them to better implement the 2030 Agenda.

To implement the environmental dimension of SDGs in a coherent manner, UN Environment Programme solidified a common work plan for the next three years in Burkina Faso, Colombia, Guyana and Bangladesh, to build institutional mechanisms using integrated approach tools and strengthen policy coherence and environmental data.

In Colombia, the Environment Ministry with our agreed to work through the regional centre for SDGs and line ministries at the sub-national office in Antioquia and partnered with the Stockholm Environment Institute for the implementation an ecosystem framework approach at the national level and received external funds from Norway.

Guyana adopted an integrated approach for a sustainable development work-plan and we advanced the proposal to develop the monitoring system of the “Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040 which was presented to the Minister´s Cabinet in October 2018.

In Burkina Faso, we supported the project’s catalytic role for the utilization of strategic tools for capacity building for environmental data development to inform decision making processes to ease SDGs implementation and the domestication of the National Economic and Social Development Plan.

Bangladesh has agreed to develop an SDG integrated financial roadmap of action and was submitted to the government for review as part of a broader UNDP SDG support project. A package of support to strengthen capacity for monitoring SDG 6 Water has been prepared by UNEP GEMS-Water Centre. The financing documents will leverage USD 2 Million from new Poverty & Environment Action.

Tackling marine litter

We held expert group meetings on marine litter in July 2018, with the view to examine barriers and options for combating marine plastic litter and micro-plastics from all sources, especially land-based sources. Moreover, we released a report which provides a global overview of national regulatory frameworks adopted by countries to control plastic bags, single-use plastics and micro-plastics pollution through national laws.

We actively supported the successful delivery of the Conferences of the Parties for four Global Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), including mercury, sustainable wetlands, and biodiversity, and Meeting of the Parties for migratory waterbirds under the biodiversity and chemicals clusters, as well as the MEAs subsidiary bodies. It also strongly advocated for the synergies processes between the post-2020 biodiversity and chemicals agendas, namely, the strategic approach to international chemicals management and the Post- 2020 Biodiversity Framework and their inter-linkages with UNEA and the SDGs processes.

UN Environment Programme's work on synergies among biodiversity treaties continues to demonstrate the importance of cooperation and coherence among biodiversity-related MEAs at the global and national levels. Our on-going work supported by GEF has seen the Central African Republic ratify the Biodiversity Nagoya Protocol on Access and benefit sharing and three countries: Chad, Sao Tome and Principe and Rwanda successfully developed their national Strategy and Action Plan on Access and Benefit Sharing.