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This second volume of selected good practices in enforcement of environmental law from African and Asia countries compiles and documents a set of good practices that were shared from enforcement experts who attended the Second Africa-Asia Expert Meeting on Enforcement of Environmental Law, held in Kunming, China, 1-4 December 2015. The good practices are presented in three categories accordingly: (i) innovative joint enforcement action (Chapter 2), (ii) legal aspects of calculation and compensation of environmental damage (Chapter 3), and (iii) measuring enforcement actions (Chapter 4), with the intention of providing other countries with different perspectives and options that can be used to strengthen their environment enforcement systems. At the end of each category of good practices, the challenges related to that topic are identified and the recommendations are put forward to address those challenges.

This book seeks to explore how legislation, which is the backbone of governance and enforcement systems, accommodates and makes provision for the connections among economic (and social) activities that may have more than one (non-linear) social or environmental impact. Legislation from different countries espouse varying approaches to sustainable development of natural resources that may (successfully or otherwise) reflect the countries particular needs and context, as well as drafting style and legal system. The range of legislative examples are offered to illustrate how countries have recognized and addressed these connections and linkages. The inherently dynamic nature of sustainable development approaches requires regulatory frameworks to be subject to continuous examination, review and adaptation. Thus, this book may offer a snapshot of approaches in the last decade or so, and recognizes that the speed of legislative approval often lags behind policy and advances in science. It presents a selection of some of the key elements for sustainable governance, drawing attention to the provisions that allow a macro-level view of the linkages and connections that recognizes impacts in more than one pillar of sustainable development. The book is structured in chapters that address select natural resource sectors that reflect the mandates of both FAO and UNEP. Starting with cross-cutting issues (Chapter 2), the book highlights legislative practices in land (Chapter 3); water resources (Chapter 4); fisheries (Chapter 5); mining (Chapter 6); oil and petroleum (Chapter 7); forestry (Chapter 8); and agriculture (Chapter 9).

In order to catalyze and to accelerate action in terms of implementing Principle 10, governments adopted the Guidelines for the Development of National Legislation on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters at the 11th Special Session of UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environmental Forum in Bali, Indonesia. These Guidelines though voluntary, demonstrate a willingness by Governments to more thoroughly engage the public at all levels to protect and manage the environment and related resources.

This guidance document, published in 2015, is known as the LIRA Guidance (Legal and Institutional infrastructures for the sound management of chemicals and measures for Recovering costs of national Administrations). It aims to provide practical support to policy makers for strengthening national legislation and institutional set-ups for achieving sound management of chemicals. It includes proposals for measures for financing necessary administration activities in this regard.

The objective of this report is to examine how, and the extent to which, environmental permitting systems regulate the environmental impacts of textile value chain activities. This report is designed to inform the UNEP Textile Initiative. This initiative provides strategic leadership and encourages sector-wide collaboration to accelerate a just transition towards a sustainable and circular textile value chain. It has outlined the imperative for the fashion sector to become radically and rapidly transformed to become circular.

Free trade zones (FTZ) and trans-shipment operations are trade facilitation mechanisms designed to enhance the efficiency of trade and attract investment. Permitted operations within FTZ, including trans-shipment, which can involve repackaging, relabelling, reloading, assembling and manufacturing goods, combined with more relaxed procedures and limited oversight, can also open doors for fraudulent activities. This is particularly concerning for trade in environmentally sensitive commodities such as wildlife and timber products, hazardous chemicals and waste, including e-waste or plastic waste, which are governed by legally binding provisions of different multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), and related national laws.

This note aims to provide interested stakeholders with information on FTZ and trans-shipment in the context of MEAs affiliated with the Green Customs Initiative (GCI). The GCI is a partnership of international entities focused on strengthening the capacities of customs and border enforcement agencies to promote compliance with trade-related MEAs and related national laws. The document highlights potential risks related to the monitoring and enforcement of trade-related laws and regulations in FTZ and of trans-shipment operations and outlines existing mechanisms to strengthen them to enhance compliance with MEAs.

This report, which updates the 2017 document by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) entitled The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review, provides an overview of the current state of climate change litigation, as well as a fresh assessment of global climate change litigation trends. It finds that a rapid increase in climate litigation has occurred around the world. The report also describes five types of climate cases that suggest where global climate change litigation may be heading in the coming years. First, plaintiffs are increasingly filing consumer and investor fraud claims alleging that companies failed to disclose information about climate risk or have disclosed information in a misleading way. Second, recent years suggest a growing number of pre- and postdisaster cases premised on a defendant’s failure to properly plan for or manage the consequences of extreme weather events. Third, as more cases are filed and some reach a conclusion, implementation of courts’ orders will raise new challenges. Fourth, courts and litigants increasingly will be called on to address the law and science of climate attribution as cases seeking to assign responsibility for private actors’ contributions to climate change and cases arguing for greater government action to mitigate both advance and proliferate. Finally, litigants are increasingly bringing claims before international adjudicatory bodies, which may lack for enforcement authority but whose declarations can shift and inform judicial understanding.