rnerstone of an effective ECT and an important element to develop in the planning process.
3.2. “Best Practices”: Improving Environmental Justice:
This UN Environment ECT Study has identified a wide range of “best practices” that characterize successful ECTs. “Successful” is defined as those practices that assure better access to justice, improve environmental jurisprudence, enhance the rule of law and use processes that result in a faster decisions and reduction in participant costs. So the test of “best practices” is more comprehensive than simply “just, quick and cheap” decision making.56
“Best practices” are recommended by expert judges, officials, academics, and other stakeholders and they are listed and explained because they enhance access to justice and support international principles of sustainability. Best practice examples include judicial independence, flexibility, use of ADR, comprehensive jurisdiction, open standing, effective remedies and enforcement powers, and unique case management and expert evidence tools. The guide also identifies recent trends in ECT development, including amalgamation, and judicial reform, trends designed to make courts more open, transparent, accessible, affordable and accountable.
Defining ‘environment and ‘justice’
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Previous attempts at limiting the definition of the ‘environment’ and ‘justice’ have proved to be rather problematic and some writers agree that there can be no single embracing definition as to what constitutes both terms. Despite the challenges of settling on one definition, an attempt will be made in this chapter to provide parameters for subsequent discussion in this thesis. As a starting point in defining ‘environmental justice,’ it will be important to understand the meanings ascribed to the terms, ‘environment’ and