ASEAN LAUNCHES FIRST EVER LEGAL TOOLKIT TO COMBAT WILDLIFE CRIME

Monday 29 February 2016 18:14
ASEAN Member States launched a new first-of-its-kind 'ASEAN Handbook on Legal Cooperation to Combat Wildlife Crime' in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and Freeland. The handbook promises to provide an essential way forward in ASEAN wildlife crime legislation, against a backdrop of varying national laws and penalties across the region.

The handbook will provide criminal justice and law enforcement officials from the ASEAN region with a strategic tool that outlines key wildlife laws in all 10 ASEAN Member States and an array of wildlife national laws for the prosecution of wildlife criminals.

In a statement, Minister of Environment and Forestry Dr. Ir. Siti Nurbaya Bakar noted that: "The handbook, already by its sheer weight, eloquently demonstrates how far we have come," adding that, "Indonesia is proud to co-organize this event with our partners, ASEAN-WEN (Wildlife Enforcement Network). Top-level officials from MOEF at the launch and workshop proper joined Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar in welcoming representatives from ASEAN Member States, ASEAN-WEN, the US Government, AIPA (ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly) and the ASEANAPOL (ASEAN Chiefs of Police). She further stressed, "This handbook is essential to better understand wildlife protection legislations, and to identify opportunities for prosecutions, understand jurisdictional overlaps and legal innovations and remedies."

Director of ASEAN-WEN LEEO Vatanarak Suranartyuth says: "The handbook will be an invaluable tool for the day-to-day work of ASEAN-WEN and its national task forces. A mature ASEAN needs mature legal literature and this handbook provides an important marker in that respect. I am convinced that it will be an indispensible tool for prosecutors, policy makers, national courts and practitioners, and thus ensure the furtherance of ASEAN's commitments." ASEAN-WEN and partners developed on this handbook since 2012 and now we glad to launched the ASEAN First Ever Legal Toolkit to Combat Wildlife Crime

The handbook was inspired by an ASEAN Legal Task Force, comprising ASEAN-WEN officials, prosecutors, ASEAN experts, the UN and NGOs. It includes international cooperation, specifically mutual legal assistance, anti-money laundering, and anti-corruption statutes and extradition, in addition to guidance for officials on how these national and regional tools might be relevant to the investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime cases and in the processing or consideration of requests for assistance across ASEAN borders.