Nieuws

Interview with Mr. Ritwick Dutta; leading figure in environmental law in India for the past 20 years and founder of LIFE (Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment)

India

Ritwick Dutta, an environmental lawyer with over 20 years of legal experience in India, established his own organisation: the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) in 2008, with a specific focus on environmental litigation.  LIFE, a non-governmental organization (NGO),

Dual interview with Mr Brandon Abdinor and Ms Thobeka Gumede, lawyers at the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) in South Africa: “It is sometimes easier to engage with communities who are already impacted and that is so unfortunate”

Brandon Abdinor became aware of the dependency of the world civilization on fossil fuels at a young age and is now a passionate climate advocacy lawyer. Thobeka Gumede initially chose environmental law out of curiosity, as it was the least

Att. Marco Emanuel Chung Ramos: “It is not just the protection of the environment; it is a protection of what is ours and of who we are”

Peru

Illustration: Joost Hölscher Marco Emanuel Chung Ramos is a lawyer specialising in human rights and criminal law who – on top of that – has made a career out of his environmental activism in Peru. Mr. Marco Chung characterises his

Interview with att. Olivier Bahemuke Ndoole: “Collaboration with our neighbouring countries Rwanda and Uganda is necessary to protect our common forests and wild animals, but the lack of clear public policies is preventing that”

Democratic Republic of Congo

Olivier Bahemuke Ndoole is a Congolese environmental and human rights activist and lawyer, living and working in the city of Goma. As executive head of his organisation ‘Alerte Congolaise pour l’Environnement et les Droits de l’Homme’ (ACEDH), he advocates for

Juan Carlos Flores Solís: “One of our main goals is to ensure the respect for the right to life, the right to self-determination of indigenous people and the right to decide over what happens in their lands”

Mexico

Photo and illustration: M. A. Fernández y J. Marcos & Joost Hölscher Mexico has one of the highest incidence rates of threats and violence committed against human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers in the world. Juan Carlos Flores Solís, in

Interview Nazeli Vardanyan: “Nothing can stop me as an environmental lawyer, I will fight until justice is done. International solidarity and support will guarantee the safety of environmental lawyers around the world”

Armenia

Illustration: Joost Hölscher The Armenian environmental lawyer, Nazeli Vardanyan, is admirable for her commitment to protecting Armenia’s environment. She is the founder and director of Armenian Forests Environmental NGO, which is committed to afforestation, reforestation, nature protection, engagement of community

Interview Syeda Rizwana Hasan: “Environmental justice is intrinsic to every other human rights issue”

Illustration: Joost Hölscher Syeda Rizwana Hasan is a renowned environmental lawyer from Bangladesh and the chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). As the only environmental justice organisation in Bangladesh, BELA is involved in advocacy and environmental public

Adil Meléndez Marquez: “When starting a legal case, there is no guarantee at all that it will ever be treated, let alone that environmental and human rights violations are actually punished”

Colombia

Illustration: Joost Hölscher Adil Meléndez Márquez, 46 years old and born in San Onofre, department of Sucre, Colombia, lives in the north of Colombia in Cartagena de las Indias. He works as an environmental and human rights lawyer and mainly

Muhammad Jamil “the denial and concealment of public information must be ended now”

Indonesia

As a lawyer working for the Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM), Muhammad Jamil seeks to protect the communities that are affected by the mining business by using advocacy and litigation tools to hold corporations that damage the environment accountable. This work

Gerthie Mayo-Anda: “I had the experience of being red-tagged in the nineties. I was shocked when I learned about this. There even used to be a price on my head.”

Philippines

Illustration: Joost Hölscher Grizelda Mayo-Anda is the co-founder and executive director of the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC), a Filipino non-government organization committed to helping communities to uphold their constitutional right to a healthful and balanced ecology. She is also

Sor.Rattanamanee Polkla: ‘We are lawyers, we are law-users, but we are also law-makers’

Thailand

With more than twenty years of practice in human rights and environmental matters, Thai lawyer Sor.Rattanamanee Polkla is deeply committed to environmental justice. With her organization, the Community Resource Centre Foundation (CRC), she provides legal aid to communities who face

Fiona Iliff: “It’s very timely to talk about environmental protection in Zimbabwe”

Zimbabwe

Illustration: Joost Hölscher ‘Zimbabwe has historically been lucky in the way certain environmental areas have been protected. Now, we see the threats against the environment rising and the work of environmental defenders and lawyers becoming riskier’. According to Fiona Iliff,