IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v21y2019i1d10.1007_s10668-017-0044-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Green Bench: Can an environmental court protect natural resources in Thailand?

Author

Listed:
  • Narong Kiettikunwong

    (Khon Kaen University)

Abstract

Environmental destruction due to development is widespread throughout Thailand, and is increasing, both in scope and severity. In addition, tensions between developers (sometimes including the government) and the public have risen, and will only become more strained as both sides become more aggressive in their tactics and demands. Members of the public and the public sector have filed nearly five thousand civil and criminal claims to force government agencies to take action against or revoke permits from corporations or development projects causing environmental destruction. However, the prolonged period required for judicial remedies to be administered appears to significantly worsen the overall environmental impact of development projects, which continue to create environmental problems while cases are lodged, heard, appealed, and ultimately decided upon. Today, using existing civil or criminal court systems and attempting to treat environmental cases differently within their procedures requires tremendous effort and also specific environmental knowledge in order to ensure a fair judicial process. Thus, many have proposed reforming judicial procedures for environmental cases by establishing a specialist environmental court or tribunal. In addition, a specialist court would be expected to issue sound judgments, producing a record in case law and contributing to good jurisprudence. This article provides an overview of the establishment of environmental courts as specialized agencies in several different countries in order to shed light on how such a transformation might feasibly be undertaken. Additionally, the article analyses the possibilities for establishing an environmental court or tribunal as a specialized agency in Thailand.

Suggested Citation

  • Narong Kiettikunwong, 2019. "The Green Bench: Can an environmental court protect natural resources in Thailand?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 385-404, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:21:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10668-017-0044-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-017-0044-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-017-0044-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-017-0044-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Muradian, Roldan & Corbera, Esteve & Pascual, Unai & Kosoy, Nicolás & May, Peter H., 2010. "Reconciling theory and practice: An alternative conceptual framework for understanding payments for environmental services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1202-1208, April.
    2. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564298, January.
    3. Igor Shishlov & Romain Morel & Valentin Bellassen, 2016. "Compliance of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the first commitment period," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 768-782, August.
    4. Harriet Bulkeley & Kristine Kern, 2006. "Local Government and the Governing of Climate Change in Germany and the UK," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(12), pages 2237-2259, November.
    5. Luppi, Barbara & Parisi, Francesco & Rajagopalan, Shruti, 2012. "The rise and fall of the polluter-pays principle in developing countries," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 135-144.
    6. Woerdman Edwin & Arcuri Alessandra & Clò Stefano, 2008. "Emissions Trading and the Polluter-Pays Principle: Do Polluters Pay under Grandfathering?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 565-590, December.
    7. Per Sandin & Martin Peterson & Sven Ove Hansson & Christina Rudén & André Juthe, 2002. "Five charges against the precautionary principle," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(4), pages 287-299, October.
    8. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564403, January.
    9. Lucie Laurian, 2008. "Environmental Injustice in France," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 55-79.
    10. R Lidskog, 1993. "Whose Environment? Which Perspective? A Critical Approach to Hazardous Waste Management in Sweden," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(4), pages 571-588, April.
    11. Hurley, Terrance M. & Shogren, Jason F., 1997. "Environmental Conflicts and the SLAPP," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 253-273, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rao, Neethi Varadaraja & Bhaskaran, Varsha & Nagendra, Harini, 2023. "Can green tribunals help to resist neo-liberalism in environmental governance – The case of India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ari-Matti Näätänen, 2015. "The Impact of Economic Globalization on the Employment Policies in 19 Western Democracies from 1985 to 2010. Limited Change or Radical Shift towards Workfare?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-18, September.
    2. Arts, Bas, 2014. "Assessing forest governance from a ‘Triple G’ perspective: Government, governance, governmentality⁎⁎This article belongs to the Special Issue: Assessing Forest Governance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 17-22.
    3. Scherrer, Christoph, 2001. "Jenseits von Pfadabhängigkeit und natürlicher Auslese: Institutionentransfer aus diskursanalytischer Perspektive," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Regulation of Work FS II 01-205, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Alessandro Bonanno & Bill Blome, 2001. "The environmental movement and labor in global capitalism: Lessons from the case of the Headwaters Forest," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 18(4), pages 365-381, December.
    5. Romanova, Tatiana, 2014. "Russian energy in the EU market: Bolstered institutionsand their effects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 44-53.
    6. Keyan Lai, 2021. "National security and FDI policy ambiguity: A commentary," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(4), pages 496-505, December.
    7. Kanishka Jayasuriya, 2001. "Damaged exports: Dynamics and limits of governance reform in Southeast Asia," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 91-106.
    8. Yun Tae Kim, 1999. "Globalization and the Nation State: The Case of South Korea," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 2(2), pages 3-21, September.
    9. Vincent Arel-Bundock & Clint Peinhardt & Amy Pond, 2020. "Political Risk Insurance: A New Firm-level Data Set," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(5), pages 987-1006, May.
    10. Lamia Yacoub & Dimitri Uzunidis, 2012. "Global Governance, Resources and Sustainable Economic Development. A Critical Approach to the International Economy," Chapters, in: Blandine Laperche & Nadine Levratto & Dimitri Uzunidis (ed.), Crisis, Innovation and Sustainable Development, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Michele-Lee Moore & Frances R. Westley & Tim Brodhead, 2012. "Social Finance Intermediaries and Social Innovation," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 184-205, October.
    12. Assen Slim, 2015. "L’aide européenne (1989-2020) aux PECO sous le prisme de l’économie politique internationale (EPI)," Post-Print hal-01271881, HAL.
    13. Hume N. Johnson, 2005. "Incivility: The Politics of ‘People on the Margins’ in Jamaica," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(3), pages 579-597, October.
    14. Simplice A, Asongu, 2011. "Government quality determinants of stock market performance in developing countries," MPRA Paper 35508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Björn Kauder & Niklas Potrafke, 2015. "Globalization and social justice in OECD countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 151(2), pages 353-376, May.
    16. Farrell Henry & Newman Abraham L., 2015. "Structuring power: business and authority beyond the nation state," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 527-552, October.
    17. Beckmann, Markus & Pies, Ingo, 2004. "Sustainability by corporate citizenship," Discussion Papers 2004-12, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    18. Mark Hallerberg, 2002. "Introduction," European Union Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 139-150, June.
    19. Pérez, Carlota, 2001. "Technological change and opportunities for development as a moving target," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    20. Frederick Ahen, 2019. "Making Resource Democracy Radically Meaningful for Stakeowners: Our World, Our Rules?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-23, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:21:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10668-017-0044-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.