Justice Dennis Adjei appointed Chairman of UN body

A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Dennis Adjei, has been appointed Chairman for the United Nations Environmental Programme for Environmental Law Training in the Judiciaries of Africa.

His appointment came at the end a three-day Colloquium on Integrating Environmental Law into Judiciaries in Africa held in South Africa.

The colloquium discussed the impact of human activities on the environment and how to integrate environmental law into the curricula of judicial training institutions in Africa

Issues discussed

Participants who attended the event recognised the need to develop the capacities of judges in Africa to enable them to effectively handle both civil and criminal matters in environmental law.

Among the topics discussed were the effective resolution of environmental disputes, sustainable integration of environmental law in judicial training curricula, key content of Judiciary environmental training manuals and the framework for developing and implementing judicial training programmes on environmental law in Africa.

An important part of the colloquium was the development of a plan of action which encompasses all the salient matters discussed.

Under the heading: “Johannesburg plan of action on Judicial Education on Environmental Law in Africa”, participants committed to a number of actions, including an agreement to have common vision and goals on environmental issues for judicial education in Africa.

They also agreed to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for their environmental law training programmes and the establishment of Green Desks in their judicial education bodies. 

The colloquium was attended by the Chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy, the Principal and the Vice Principal for the Judicial Institute of Pakistan, 26 judicial trainers from Africa and academics from some of the leading universities and environmental officers from the United Nations office in Kenya.