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ELAW Bulletin

Public interest advocates in the DRC face increasing challenges, so ELAW and partners at the Centre Congolaise pour le Droit du Développement Durable (Congolese Center for Law and Sustainable Development, CODED) co-hosted a two-day meeting earlier this week for lawyers and activists working across the DRC.

In 1991, grassroots advocates from 10 countries agreed to help each other protect communities and the environment through law. They launched ELAW. Today, we collaborate with hundreds of grassroots advocates in more than 80 countries, helping them win lasting victories against environmental abuse and build a just future.

ELAW Bulletin

Corals, communities, and coastlines in Mesoamerica are suffering the effects of failed and inadequate wastewater treatment. ELAW has been working with partners in Mexico to protect water quality and is now expanding across the region, to clean up water supplies and hold polluters accountable.

ELAW Bulletin

I am writing with very difficult news — we recently lost a beloved member of the ELAW US team. ELAW Law Associate Killian Doherty passed away on February 23 at the age of 37. Killian had been fighting a rare and aggressive cancer since late 2019. He put up a brave fight — working full time with ELAW and spending time with family and friends in-between treatments.

ELAW Bulletin

 In early February, ELAW welcomed a distinguished panel of Indigenous leaders and legal experts who presented their 2020 report, The Case for a Guardian Network Initiative.

ELAW Bulletin

This year, World Wetlands Day shines a spotlight on wetlands as a source of freshwater and encourages us to protect and restore them.

ELAW Bulletin

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Plastic Law, an overview of laws designed to tackle the growing problem of disposable plastic, along with a library of court decisions addressing the problem.

ELAW Bulletin

A coalition of Bahamian NGOs and businesses are fighting to protect The Bahamas from foreign oil developers.

ELAW Bulletin

Tomorrow, ELAW partners at the Jamaica Environment Trust will host a public forum on the ground-breaking findings of: “Red Dirt: A Multidisciplinary Review of the Bauxite-Alumina Industry in Jamaica.”

ELAW Bulletin

The people of Byliky in Central Ukraine are celebrating a victory over a polluting pig farm. The farm, in the village in Poltava Oblast, had its land lease terminated in 2018, due to gross negligence. Last month, the newly elected village council voted to ban all polluting facilities within the limits of Byliky village, to ensure that vacated land and farm premises would not be taken over by new, polluting farms.

ELAW Bulletin

More than 50 Cameroonian judges are participating in “Environmental Law and Litigation” workshops in the mountain city of Buea, in southwest Cameroon.

The world is drowning in single-use plastic. Sea turtles strangled by six-pack rings and whales with bellies full of discarded plastic show that it’s a marine pollution problem. But the problem really starts on land.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW is pleased to share some highlights of our work together this year.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partners are celebrating a big victory for an enormous forest complex which includes Sri Lanka’s largest national park – Wilpatthu National Park – and contiguous forests that are home to many threatened species, including leopards, elephants, sloth bears, and migratory birds.

ELAW Bulletin

Major climate impacts and exorbitant costs have sounded the death knell for a new proposed coal-fired power station in South Africa.

ELAW Bulletin

Iniciativa Ciudadana y Profesional para la Defensa Jurídica del Litoral (Prolitoral), defended by ELAW partner Dr. Eduardo Salazar Ortuño, celebrate the hard-won victory! Prolitoral is a collective formed by Ecologistas en Acción, the Asociación de Naturalistas del Sureste (ANSE), Amacora and other environmental and legal professionals.

ELAW Bulletin

We are thrilled to welcome ELAW Fellow Anna Fomina, a Russian attorney working to protect communities in southwest Siberia from polluting coal operations.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partners at the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) have been fighting, for more than one year, to have foreign waste sent back to the UK and hold polluters accountable.

ELAW Bulletin

 We are thrilled to announce that ELAW partner Lottie Cunningham Wren in Nicaragua has won a 2020 Right Livelihood Award “for her ceaseless dedication to the protection of indigenous lands and communities from exploitation and plunder.”

ELAW Bulletin

Last week, ELAW partners at Greenwatch co-hosted a two-day workshop with the Judicial Training Institute of Uganda to help judges and legal professionals get up to speed on climate litigation and how it can promote climate justice and hold governments accountable for the effects of climate change.

The world needs to move past coal. Coal kills people and is the largest source of CO2 emissions – we simply cannot continue burning coal if we hope to protect the climate.

ELAW Bulletin

A team of ELAW partners, including Adv. T. Mohan and Adv. A. Yogeshwaran, with senior Adv. R. Vaigai as lead counsel, along with other Chennai-based lawyers, including B. Poongkhulali, Chethana, and Annapoorani, successfully challenged an attempt by Sterlite Copper, a unit of global mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd., to reopen its plant, which was ordered closed in 2018 after many years of toxic operations.

ELAW Bulletin

 ELAW partner Olivier Ndoole reports a big win for renewable energy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): The Nuru company’s 1.3MW solar hybrid project in Goma has received a permit to begin construction and distribution.

ELAW Bulletin
This month, the Centre for Environmental Justice in Sri Lanka announced back to back wins to enforce existing environmental protections.

ELAW Bulletin

The global pandemic has put in-person ELAW Fellowships on hold, but we are working “face-to-face” with new Fellows from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Guinea to help them build skills.

ELAW Bulletin

Guyana's EPA is considering a proposal by US oil giant ExxonMobil to expand oil exploitation in the Stabroek block.
ELAW Staff Scientist, Dr. Mark Chernaik is helping Melinda Janki, an international lawyer and attorney-at-law in Guyana point out the potential harm from the development

Everyone at the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) is adapting to the challenges of the global pandemic and finding ways to build on our high impact work. For years, we have done much of our work online, so we are well positioned to collaborate with our partners during this difficult time.

ELAW Bulletin

The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) has tirelessly taken on polluters and defended communities and ecosystems since it was founded in 1992 by Dr. Mohiuddin Farooque. We are thrilled to announce that BELA, now lead by ELAW Partner, Rizwana Hasan, has been awarded a 2020 Tang Prize for Rule of Law.

ELAW Bulletin

The world’s largest steel producer, ArcelorMittal, was fined this month for violating three atmospheric emission license conditions at its Vanderbijlpark operations, south of Johannesburg.