Capacity building Project to Promote Access to Land and Justice in Kenya

Partner: Ford Foundation Following the passing of the passing of the new Constitution 2010, the judiciary has come to embody the greatest hope for positive change in the country. This is particularly so in the context of land and environment matters, which form the larger portion of the disputes that end up in the courts of law. In addition, the courts are expected to fairly and competently arbitrate on a host of broad new socio-economic rights and obligations created under the new Constitution. These include the right to a clean and healthy environment, water, sanitation, shelter, and food, among others. They must also give meaning to various related obligations such as ensuring 10% forest cover, protecting genetic resources and biological diversity, ensuring public participation, protecting intellectual property and indigenous knowledge, and ensuring ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources.  So important are these issues that a special court – the Environment and Land Court – has been established under Art 162(2)(b) of the Constitution and the Environment and Land Court Act No. 19 of 2011 to deal exclusively with them. The Environment and Land Court, in particular, will be instrumental in guiding the evolving jurisprudence in ways that promote effective access to justice and sustainable development. This will include providing directions on sectoral legal and institutional reforms required to harmonize the existing tensions and overlaps to bring them in harmony with each other and with the new Constitution. It is against this backdrop that the Institute for Law and Environmental Governance is working towards building the capacity of the Judiciary (Judges, Magistrates and other Judicial officers) on Kenya’s new environment and land laws. This is with an aim to enhance jurisprudence in relation to the new Constitution and its implications for sustainable land and natural resource management in order to promote effective delivery of justice on Land and Environment matters