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	Impunity on trial in the Philippines by Committee to Protect Journalists   Nov. 2010   The prosecution of dozens of defendants in the 2009 Maguindanao murders is testing a faltering judicial system in the Philippines. Bribes, intimidation, attacks, and flawed detective work already threaten to undermine the government’s case. Will this massacre go unpunished? A CPJ special report by Shawn W. Crispin.   Location: Ampatuan, Philippines.   Weeds have overgrown the backhoe-scarred clearing set among the tropical hills of rural Maguindanao province. Aquiles Zonio has a question as he looks over this killing field where a year earlier a political hit squad executed his colleagues and friends, dumping their bodies into open pits.   Will it ever be safe to work here?   It was on this hilltop clearing, overlooking the abandoned bamboo shacks of a former rebel camp, that 57 people, including 32 journalists and media support workers, were systematically shot and killed in an orgy of violence now known as the Maguindanao massacre. The main suspect in the crime, Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of the town that bears his family’s name, is now on trial in Manila along with the police and paramilitary members he allegedly commanded.   “After the massacre people were afraid to talk, but after the Ampatuans were arrested and placed behind bars many local residents and others started to work together for justice,” said Zonio, a local reporter who traveled to the site with CPJ on a recent day, a military patrol in escort to protect against the dozens of suspects still on the loose. Then again, Zonio added, “They are so rich and so powerful, there is still a chance they’ll go unpunished.”   That’s been the case in more than 90 percent of media killings in the Philippines since 1992, CPJ research shows. The administration of newly elected President Benigno Aquino has made encouraging statements about the need to reverse that record of impunity, raising hopes that justice will be served in the legal proceedings now under way in the Maguindanao massacre.. Visit the related web page
	Climate court is both prescient and practical by John Vidal Poverty Matters Bangladesh   Nov. 2010   Over a thousand legal experts, politicians and economists gathered in Dhaka this week to explore routes to justice for the victims of climate criminals – and found that precedents exist.   Imagine an international court where the poorest people in the world could sue countries such as the US or Britain for failing to keep to agreements to reduce climate emissions or for knowingly causing devastating climate change.   It"s some way off, but this week has seen an extraordinary tribunal being held in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with more than 1,200 people including British lawyers, politicians and economists, listening to the testimonies of villagers living at the frontline of climate change.   It was only a mock tribunal, organised by Oxfam, but it explored the growing idea that the largest carbon emitters should be bound by international law to protect the lives and livelihoods of those most at risk from the impacts of climate change.   Rushanara Ali, the newly-elected MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, who is already shadow minister for international development, was there along with Richard Lord QC, who will be looking at the legislation that is available for affected countries to pursue.   The stories the tribunal heard were heartbreaking. Mamtaz, one of four plaintiffs, wanted to know who was legally responsible for her fisherman husband"s death. She and others testified that the seas off Bangladesh are now rougher more often and that boats were capsized more frequently in the increasingly stormy weather. Barek Majhi, a fisherman, told the tribunal how his three trawlers had sunk and ruined his means of making a living. The cries for climate justice are growing stronger by the day.   In Latin America, President Evo Morales has formally proposed to the UN that an International Court of Climate Justice is established. It would have the capacity to restrain, prosecute and punish states, companies and people who, by act or omission, make major contributions to climate change.   Support at the World People"s Conference on Climate Change in April has come from tens of thousands of people.   Of interest to Oxfam and even the UN could be a new paper from Field, the London-based Foundation for International Environmental Law & Development. This shows how there are many existing laws and principles available for states to sue one another for damage caused by climate change, and how this could pressure nations into stronger international action.   Top of the list was the "no-harm rule", a widely recognised principle of customary international law, which Field"s lawyers say is directly applicable to climate change.   Under the principle, nations are bound to prevent, reduce and control the risk of environmental harm to other nations. The classic example of this was litigation over transboundary air pollution between Canada and the United States, where Canada was forced to compensate the US for damage caused by sulphur dioxide emissions.   Meanwhile, senior academics, judges and lawmakers from around the world are backing the International Court for the Environment. It would be an over-arching global institution that would provide improved access to justice following incidents of environmental damage and breaches of international treaties, and would, exclusively, sit above – and adjudicate on – disputes arising out of UN environmental treaties, such as 1992"s Convention on Biological Diversity and its Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto protocol. Visit the related web page
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