Training in Environmental Law for Lawyers and Judicial Officers
ILEG, in partnership with the Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law (CASELAP) of the University of Nairobi and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), has, in the past three years, been seeking to promote access to environmental justice through various avenues. The critical role played by the judiciary in ensuring that citizens have avenues and means of seeking redress and enforcement of their environmental rights and duties through the courts made them an important fraternity for discourse in environmental law and policy. ILEG hosted colloquia on environmental law and policy for the entire High Court Bench and for 50 senior magistrates in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, with immense support from the Chief Justice, ILEG held the EA Judicial Colloquium for the Court of Appeal Judges from the three East African countries Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
The East Africa Judicial Colloquium was held from 10th -15th April 2007 at the Whitesands Beach Resort in Mombasa. It provided a forum for judges to discourse on, share experiences about developments on the environmental law front in each of their respective countries, exchange ideas on environmental law and mechanisms for promoting sustainable development in East Africa. The colloquium further helped build on the jurisprudence on land and environmental law for three partner states which in future will help to develop a common regional jurisprudence based on common understanding of East Africa.
ILEG has to date hosted a series of seminars and symposia on environmental law and policy for lawyers where about 200 lawyers from the public sector, private practice, business and industrial organisations as well as from the non governmental organisations have attended. These forums aim at appraising participants of the current legal and policy framework for environmental governance in Kenya. Two seminars on environmental law were held in 2007 one in Kisumu on 19th October and the other in Mombasa on 23rd November. A total of 90 lawyers attended the seminars which gave special focus to environmental issues facing the two respective regions.
By focusing on environmental issues predominant to the respective regions, participants were quickly able to identify environmental issues that are a part of their day to day lives as citizens in the regions and resulted in lively and highly interactive discussion on how they as lawyers can play a significant role in their communities to ensure environmental integrity. The role of public interest litigation in enhancing environmental governance also played a key role in the discussions and deliberations.
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