Climate change litigation: a possibility for Malaysia?
Recent years have seen the emergence of climate change litigation as a mechanism to pressure government and industry to respond to climate issue. Globally, this litigation trend is on the increase where legal actions are being pursued in the courts by members of civil society to achieve binding deci...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English English |
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2018
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| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/68687/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/68687/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/68687/1/Dr.%20Maizatun%20CC%20litigation%20workshop_program%20%287%20May%202018%29.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/68687/8/Climate%20Change%20Litigation%20PP%20PDF.pdf |
| Summary: | Recent years have seen the emergence of climate change litigation as a mechanism to pressure government and industry to respond to climate issue. Globally, this litigation trend is on the increase where legal actions are being pursued in the courts by members of civil society to achieve binding decisions relating to climate change reduction, mitigation or adaptation.While there has been a worldwide advancement on climate change litigation even among some developing countries, this is not currently reflected on Malaysia. Despite the fact that this nation has shown its commitment by passing a number of legislations and executing various policies relating to climate change, until now, there has not been a single case brought to court on climate issue. This situation is not surprising considering that environment-related lawsuit is still lacking with only a small number of environmental cases ever been decided in Malaysia. While litigious culture is not common among the Malaysian society, factors such as state of the judiciary, limited access to justice, limited environmental awareness, and limited recognition of environmental rights have further undermined litigation in the area of environment and climate change. The aims of this paper are to investigate Malaysia’s policy and law relating to climate change, and to identify areas of law that can become potential tools which are directly or indirectly pertinent to climate change litigation. All over the world, litigation has progressively been seen as an effective mean in promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation. This paper is meant to discover whether Malaysia would follow the global trend or whether it is adamant that legal responses to climate change should be based on its local circumstances using different strategies which are not necessarily litigious in nature. |
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