Learnings from recent lawsuits in Cambodia and Thailand
The high vulnerability of South-East Asia to climate change is
acknowledged in the ASEAN Action Plan on Joint Response to
Climate Change1. The region has become
'less ecologically diverse and more environmentally
vulnerable'2 as evidenced by the Global Climate
Risk Index 2019 which rank Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam
amongst the 10 most affected countries to climate change between
1998-20173. The ASEAN judiciary has also
recognized the common climate change challenges:
"Southeast Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change
and is increasingly a significant contributor to global greenhouse
gas emissions."4
This dawning sense of urgency stands in contrast to the
preference of most ASEAN countries for defining climate responses
peripherally through policies, action plans, and existing laws
rather than new and specific climate change laws. Two recent cases
on land grabbing in Thailand and Cambodia
