Many thanks to both the National Federation of Taiwan Bar Associations and the Taipei Bar Association. Some time ago, Mr. Thomas S.K. Chan and our association floated the idea of sponsoring a series of events that would be designed for lawyers, and would aim to enhance both our understanding of, and interest in, the impact of law on the environment. Thomas pursued this with National Federation of Bar Associations and the proposal was accepted. This is the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series of presentations.
During an interview about his film Fahrenheit 911, Michael Moore was asked if the movie is biased. He said no question about it, he has a position and the facts are presented in a way that supports this position. He goes on to point out that all producers, distributors and exhibitors of film and television (and for that matter all media), have an agenda, an underlying message: all are biased. However, what distinguishes his film from others is that he admits to taking a position, he admits to the bias, whereas nearly all other films, news reports, television programming etc. profess “objectivity”, or “no political or other agendas”, or are touted as being “purely for entertainment”.
One need not look far for these phenomena. US media coverage of the war in Iraq, the perpetuation by the media of the supposed existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden continued in the face of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. Yet the media continued. Negligence? Bias?.
The co sponsor of today’s program, Taiwan Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, has a bias. That bias is based on our conviction that the natural environment is being destroyed at unprecedented rates, which is taking us to an early extinction of many species including our own. Our association is biased in that we believe that nearly all activities our culture and civilization undertake in the name of “progress”, “globalization”, “maintaining competitiveness”, “development” (including so called “sustainable development”, “improving the standard of living”, “raising the GDP” and all the other slogans that we hear from the government and from most politicians from the major political parties, are directly connected to and responsible for this destruction. Our association is biased in that we believe that most of the laws, regulations and practices of courts and administrative agencies serve to support and endorse the continuation of this destruction. We are also biased in that we believe all people have the responsibility to do everything possible to stop the destruction.
So what do we lawyers do about it? Let's start small and not try to stop global warming or to solve the population problem before we have addressed issues closer to home (although for both global warming and over population there are simple steps that each of us can take). As people who do legal work we think the protection of the natural environment provides a great vehicle for our research, planning, negotiating, deliberating, litigating and all other aspects of advocacy and legal practice – those skills we have worked on for years to develop.
We think that putting our energies and resources to environmental “CPR” (conservation, preservation and restoration) is (or should be) as “normal” as accepting work from a client who builds a highway, incinerator, garbage dump or nuclear power plant, who imports or manufactures chemicals and fertilizer that end up in our rivers and deplete the natural nutrients of our soils, who sell tobacco and other products that directly harm the health of our people, who build retail stores and hyper marts that encourage over-consumption and push out the Mom and Pop traditional stores, or who engage in the advertising and other promotion of these products. At the moment it is not nearly as easy to make a living from CPR work as it is from facilitating destruction. We believe things will change. We believe they must. And we hope you will help.
This seminar, and others like it, is intended to give an introduction to lawyers and others who work in the law to two basic areas. First, we will introduce the wonders and beauty of nature – in particular Taiwan, its connection to our survival and quality of living, and how it is being devastated. Second, we will present summaries of two case studies where environmentalists and lawyers work together on a case, a case that involves protecting our land, water, air and what I like to refer as “others”.
In Taipei, the case studies selected are the planned construction of the Su Hua Highway and the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. In Taijhong we will address protection of the environment from the standpoint of stopping the construction and operation of incinerators, and in Kaohsiung we will address the legal issues arising from the soil and groundwater pollution of the Tai Jian manufacturing plant.
These seminars will not directly address policy issues. Several government officials have recently taken environmentalists to task saying that the positions of the environmental protection groups implicates what may “require an over-haul of national policy” (the implication being that we are asking for too much!). We think policy overhaul is definitely needed, but instead of waiting for some sort of national conference on the economy or for some “superman official” or super solution, we believe we should start working from the ground up. We believe the most effective way to deal with policy issues is through “doing”. Through working on the day-to-day issues we are building up a bank of experience through which solutions to many of the serious problems faced by the environment will reveal themselves – this is how we believe policy should be formulated.
Today’s seminar in Taipei is the first of what we hope will be an ongoing series. It will depend of course in large part on the participation and support of the legal community in Taiwan. We hope these three hours will stimulate interest and action.
More information on the Wild at Heart Association is available in the brochure and on our website.
Special thanks goes out to Philip Luo, Patent Attorney and founder of Xino International Patent and Trademark Office for his generous donation of NT$100,000 to help defray the costs of this program. And again, we greatly appreciate the efforts of the National Federation of Bar Associations and the Environmental Law Group of the Taipei Bar Association, in particular Thomas Chan, his colleagues on the TBA task force and his colleagues of Justus Law Offices as well as my colleagues at Winkler Partners.
1. Minister Without Portfolio Lin Sheng-fong 林盛,豐, 21 June 2004 during a meeting with environmental groups on the man made lakes project at the Council for Economic Development.
Note: Robin Winkler delivered these remarks to members of the Taipei Bar Association at Environmental Law in Taiwan, a seminar sponsored by Wild at Heart, on 31 July 2004.
Introduction by Robin Winkler
Taipei, 31 July 2004