Civil society groups in Southeast Asia are calling for greater public participation and transparency in the drafting process of a regional declaration on environmental rights, as well as stronger levels of commitment from states within the final agreement. First tabled in 2021 by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the bloc’s declaration on environmental rights, known as ADER, aims to provide an unprecedented regional framework to push for the implementation of international environmental rights standards. These include the 2022 U.N. General Assembly declaration of access to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right. “Currently, many countries in Southeast Asia have been experiencing heat waves due to climate change, so this is an important moment for ASEAN member states to take genuine actions to address issues around the environment and climate change for the better of the people,” Duch Piseth, a lawyer at Cambodia-based Business and Human Rights Law Group, told Mongabay in an interview. The working group tasked to formulate the agreement, comprising representatives of ASEAN states and civil society groups, has so far been through four rounds of talks. The latest negotiations on the current draft of the agreement were held in Jakarta from May 6-7. A community leader from a village near Jantho in Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay. Observers say the agreement could be a landmark instrument for environmental and Indigenous defenders across the region, particularly if it fully recognizes their critical role in combating the triple…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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