The appointment, which was handed him by the United Nations Environmental Programme, in conjunction with the South African Judicial Education Institute, 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.

Participants recognised the need to develop the capacities of judges on the African Continent to enable them to effectively handle both civil and criminal maters in environmental law.

Among the topics discussed at the colloquium 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.

These include an agreement to have common vision and goals on environmental issues for judicial education in Africa, development of 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 Vice Principal for the Judicial Institute of Pakistan, twenty-six judicial trainers from Africa, academics from some of the leading universities and environmental officers from the United Nations office in Kenya and the heads and representatives of judicial education institutions in Africa.