Explores judicial independence, integrity and impartiality in Asia-Pacific countries.

This book brings together in one volume critical reflections on the experience of judicial reform in countries around the region, including India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It focuses on practical reform experience, rather than theory and aims to identify strengths and weaknesses of various reform programmes and help in the development of good practices based on the lessons learnt. The topics covered include implementation of judicial reform initiatives, promoting access to justice, ethics and accountability, judicial education and skills development, and case management. The contributors to the volume are senior judges, court administrators, lawyers, scholars and representatives of civil society from across the region who have first hand experience of various reform programmes. One of the major and most unambiguous contentions of the volume is that the judiciary itself must play a pro-active role if judicial reform is to be achieved and the goal of economic growth is to be integrated with justice for all.

First comparative study of women judges in the Asia-Pacific based on empirical socio-legal research.

This book examines the numerous new courts created throughout Asia during the last 20 years, covering important jurisdictions including human rights, intellectual property disputes, bankruptcy petitions, commercial contracts, public law adjudication, personal law, labour and industrial disputes. It evaluates their performances, and considers the broader economic, social and political implications.

Environmental Courts and Tribunals in Asia-Pacificis an in-depth treatment of the features, best practices, challenges and future prospects for environmental courts and tribunals (ECTs) in the Asia-Pacific region. ECTs play an important role in improving environmental dispute resolution, access to environmental justice and environmental governance, but data and academic analysis on ECTs are very limited. This book fills that gap, with ten chapters authored by leading academics, judges and lawyers from multiple jurisdictions, including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as pan-Asia-Pacific and global perspectives

Climate change in Asia and the Pacific is deadly and impacts communities now. Regional climate litigation seeks relief in increasingly urgent ways and judges need a tool kit to respond. Report Two of this four-part series is a comprehensive review of the growing number and variety of climate lawsuits in Asia and the Pacific. It underscores the unique flavor and voice of regional jurisprudence and compares it with global approaches. No one can solve climate change alone and neither can any particular judiciary. Judges can, however, learn from each other, taking judicial excellence and applying it to the case before them.

The purpose of this book is to provide a consolidated collection of materials to facilitate comparison of the various national human rights institutions (NHRIs) already established in the Asia-Pacific region, against a background of selected international materials and with the assistance of several comparative tables. The latter are not intended to be exhaustive, but are designed to assist in identifying and considering the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the legislative mandates of each national institution. While the collection is primarily intended for teaching purposes, it should also be useful to countries considering establishing a national human rights commission or, for those which have already done so, strengthening its mandate. For this reason several sections have been included outlining the relationship which should exist between NHRIs, the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary and other related institutions and a short section on the importance of the process which should precede their establishment.

This is the first scholarly examination of climate change litigation in the Asia Pacific region. Bringing legal academics and lawyers from the Global South and Global North together, this book provides rich insights into how litigation can galvanize climate action in countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and China. Written in clear and accessible language, the fourteen chapters in this book shed light on the important question of how litigation may unfold as a potential regulatory pathway towards decarbonization in the world's most populous region.