ETEE7

Highlights Day 1: 10 March 2013 33
and a standardized database of jurisprudence in the region to better understand environmental issues
and develop a judicial strategy to address these issues. Ultimately, there should be a connection between
environmental judges and what is really happening at the district level.
Justice Yang Arif Tan Sri Abdull Hamid bin Embong, justice of the Federal Court of Malaysia, first
thanked ADB for having invited him to speak at this symposium and expressed his newfound awareness
of wildlife issues, including the number of enforcement officers killed while trying to stop the illegal wildlife
trade. Before the symposium, he would only tell the prosecutor to prove his case, while sticking to the
cold facts. He did not care how difficult it was to investigate a case or to enforce the law; and for him, this
should not be the case. He agreed with Justice Shah that frontline green court judges should get involved
in wildlife conferences.
Justice Embong then discussed how Malaysian green court judges first became aware of
environmental issues—starting with the first Asian Judges Symposium in Manila on 28–29 July 2010,
followed by the inaugural ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtable on Environment in Jakarta on 5–7 December
2011, the first forum at which ASEAN chief justices sat together and discussed common environmental
challenges. He also recalled that both Chief Justice Zakaria and he were first exposed to environmental
matters during the Asian Judges Symposium. Malaysian judges at the time were completely unaware
of environmental matters. Thus, barely 2 months after the first ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtable on
Environment (at the start of the Malaysian legal year in January 2012), Chief Justice Zakaria announced
that Malaysia would establish its own environmental courts and that finally took place 9 months later.
Malaysia now has 50 dedicated green court judges and magistrates. In December 2012, the Federal Court
of Malaysia hosted the Second ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtable on Environment in Melaka, Malaysia.
Justice Embong ended his presentation on a positive note. He confidently spoke of more meetings
and discussions at the ASEAN level with the succeeding ASEAN Chief Justices’ Roundtables to be
held in Thailand in 2013 and in Viet Nam in 2014. Again, he thanked ADB for the invitation to attend
this symposium.
Dr. Wanhua Yang, legal officer of the Division of Environmental Law and Conventions of the United
Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, first thanked the
session chairperson, ADB, CITES, and ICCWC for organizing this symposium and for the honor of
speaking on UNEP’s behalf.
Dr. Yang then spoke of UNEP’s role within the United Nations (UN) system as the designated
authority on environmental matters and its role in the development and implementation of international
and national environmental laws and in capacity building on compliance and enforcement. To promote
the judiciary’s vital role in safeguarding environmental justice, UNEP convened the 2002 Global Judges
Symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 120 judges from around the world.In 2012,
UNEP partnered with a range of regional and global organizations, including the World Bank, ADB,
INTERPOL, and the CITES Secretariat to convene the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law
for Environmental Sustainability in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This time, UNEP gathered together more than
250 of the world’s most important stakeholder groups in the legal and enforcement communities—chief
justices, senior judges, chief prosecutors, attorneys general, auditors general, and other senior enforcement
officials—to deliberate on the means of improving environmental compliance. The World Congress