During its first two years, the Law and Communities (L&C) Program was primarily active in the biodiversity triangle comprised of the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, while maintaining and developing possibilities for future activities in Africa and other Asian and Pacific nations. In 1999, thanks in large measure to support from the Goldman Fund and the Ford Foundation, including regional Ford offices in Johannesburg, Nairobi, and New Delhi, the program initiated activities in India and east and southern Africa. Additional support from regional Ford offices in Jakarta and Manila allowed the program to expand its efforts in those nations.  L&C program staff also engage in ongoing discussions, host, and occasionally visit, public interest lawyers in various countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Growing the Pool of Public Interest Lawyers

Lawyers typically focus (often for good reasons) on national and international laws and urban issues, especially in capital cities where wealth and power are concentrated. There is less effort, and even less research devoted to rural issues, particularly as they relate to community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), the legal recognition of community-based property rights (CBPRs), and other local incentives for sustainable development. This neglect is often reflected in laws and policies which fail to support sustainable resource management initiatives of local communities.

Public interest lawyers can play an important leadership role in deconstructing existing legal systems and in constructing just and environmentally friendly alternatives. They are uniquely positioned to assist in the design and implementation of strategies for promoting the legal and political empowerment of rural peoples directly dependent on natural resources. This includes helping to build and provide leadership to mass-based movements, amplifying the voices of rural constituencies, and formulating effective strategies to promote justice and sustainable development, including the legal recognition of community-based property rights (CBPRs).

The fundamental integrative idea behind the L&C program, therefore, is to develop creative and proactive strategies that help grow and strengthen the pool of public interest lawyers and law students, particularly those with an interest in, and commitment to, using law to promote and protect community-based property rights. A brief description of these strategies follows. Detailed descriptions of USAID supported L&C program activities in the Philippines  and Indonesia are available.

1.    Domestic Internships

CIEL is supporting law student internships at existing public interest law NGOs to develop expertise on CBPR and CBNRM issues during summer and semester breaks, and school holidays. The L&C Program is funding eight law student internships in partner institutions in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa.  The goal is also to highlight the promise, importance and financial viability of public interest law careers. 

2.    South/South Exchanges.

The L&C Program envisions its role in facilitating South/South exchanges in three ways: identifying and pairing up public interest lawyers and institutions that would benefit from such exchanges, helping coordinate the logistical and substantive arrangements, and providing funding. CIEL recently sponsored a successful Philippines-Papua New Guinea (PNG) skill share exercise. Plans are underway for a skill share exchange in which lawyers from Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia will visit the Philippines. The Philippines is specifically being considered because of its extraordinarily strong civil society that includes an impressive array of public interest law institutions and a comparatively innovative set of government laws and programs for promoting CBPRs and CBNRM.  PNG merits special attention as over 90% of the nation’s landmass is legally recognized as being owned by local clans pursuant to undocumented yet private CBPRs.

3.    Regional Workshops/Conferences.

1. African Public Interest Law and Community-based Property Rights Workshop

CIEL and the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT) with assistance from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), hosted an African Public Interest Law and CBPR workshop from August 1 – 4, 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania.  The focus of the workshop was on legal aspects of property rights relationships between African governments and local communities that foster or hinder efforts to promote sustainable development.  Details of the workshop are available on the L&C Program Announcements page.

2. Community-Based Marine Management and Public Interest Law. The L&C Program plans to co-host with its partner Tanggol Kalikasan, a workshop in the Philippines in June 2001 on community-based marine management and public interest law.  The goal is to help develop public interest law and legal expertise on issues of concern to local fishing communities dependent on marine resources.   More details are available on the L&C Program Announcements page.

4.    North/South Exchanges. 

1. Clean Development Mechanism and Local Communities CIEL is collaborating with the Amazon Alliance, the Climate Action Network, and other concerned groups on an urgent and belated effort to raise awareness of the need to involve local people in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) introduced the Clean Development Mechanism. The CDM is a cooperative mechanism that allows developed countries to invest in climate change mitigation projects in developing countries, and to receive emissions credits for reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. International negotiations are currently underway with an aim towards finalizing the CDM's implementation mechanism. A successful workshop on " The Climate Change Convention and the CDM: Advocating for Basic Rights of Indigenous and other Local Communities" was held in Quito, Ecuador from May 2-4, 2000. As a result of this workshop, indigenous and other local community representatives attended the Subsidiary Body meetings and COP6 of the Climate Convention, in an attempt to ensure that local people will be notified and ensured some benefits if their areas are designated for inclusion under CDM projects. Read more on the Quito workshop and the Quito Declaration (a Spanish version is also available).
   
2. Interest has been expressed in the L&C program staff delivering lectures on career opportunities in public interest law that would include an emphasis on building institutions, and the importance of rural constituencies and CBPRs. Over the last year, CIEL has given lectures at the School of International Legal Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the University of Delhi Law Faculty, the University of Indonesia Faculty of Law, and the Makere University Faculty of Law in Uganda.  A seminar on "Promoting Public Interest Law in India" was held in November 2000 at the National Law School, Bangalore, India.  The broader focus is being considered in response to comments by young lawyers to the L&C program staff that while large corporate law firms recruit at most leading law schools, many law students have little awareness of public interest law career opportunities.
3. CIEL provides ongoing support to public interest lawyers from the South who are temporarily based in Washington, DC.  These include Filipino, Kenyan and Tanzanian law students, and a lawyer from the Chadian Association for Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (ATPDH) who is a Human Rights and Environment Law Fellow at CIEL.  In addition, the Program makes special efforts to meet with and assist other public interest lawyers interested in CBPRs when they visit Washington.

5.    CBPR Database.  

A community-based property rights (CBPR) online database is being compiled for different countries. The database profiles and identifies constitutional provisions, and existing national laws, regulations, policies and agreements that support community ownership and management of natural resources. When available, it will also provide examples of actual agreements between communities and the national (or state) governments. The goal is to establish a user-friendly knowledge base that permits cross-fertilization of ideas, and serves as an educational and practical tool for interested parties. A preliminary version of the database is scheduled to be posted on the web in an easily accessible format by the end of 2001. 

6.    Legal and Policy Research.

The L&C Program has been undertaking legal research and writing on behalf of local peoples and CBPRs. In that regard, CIEL recently completed in collaboration with the Mountain Forum, a paper titled “Mountain Laws and Peoples: Moving Towards Sustainable Development and Legal Recognition of Community-Based Property Rights." The paper provides a global overview of mountain laws and policies and includes insights from the Mountain Forum’s Electronic Conference on Mountain Policy and Law. 

A paper titled “Promoting Legal Recognition of Community-Based Property Rights, Including the Commons: Some Theoretical Considerations” was presented at a Symposium of the International Association for the Study of Common Property and the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, June 1999. It can be found at: www.indiana.edu/~iascp/symposium99.html.

CIEL also collaborated with the International Human Rights Law Group in the drafting and submission on May 31, 1999 of an amicus brief to the Inter American Court of Justice in San Juan, Costa Rica. The brief asserts that the Republic of Nicaragua is constitutionally and legally obliged to recognize the community-based property rights of the Mayagna (Sumo) Community of Awas Tingni. The case arose out of a Nicaraguan concession of indigenous lands to Asian logging interests. On February 4, 2000 the Inter American Court decided that it would consider the merits of the case, an unprecedented ruling in a legal proceeding that may have a profoundly positive impact on the rights of millions of indigenous peoples of the Americas.

For more information contact: Owen J. Lynch (olynch@ciel.org) or Lauren Baker (lbaker@ciel.org).