The meeting will gather 25 Chief Justices and Senior Judges, representative of different regions and legal systems, to provide advice and guidance on the development of a plan of work for the capacity-building of judicial officers in developing countries and countries with economies in transition as well as other legal stakeholders active in the implementation and enforcement of national environmental law, such as prosecutors, enforcement officers, lawyers, public interest litigation groups, civil society groups active in safeguarding environmental rights of people as well as, in the longer term, teachers and students of environmental law.

The Meeting will gather 25 top Judges, who already participated in the Global Judges Symposium on Sustainable Development and the Role of Law, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 18-20 August 2002. The Judges will meet in Nairobi, on 30-31 January 2003, just before the twenty-second session of the Governing Council of UNEP (3-7 February 2003) to develop a detailed plan of work for capacity building of the judiciary and other legal stakeholders.

Capacity building of the Judiciary is already envisaged in UNEP`s programme of work, on the basis of what required by the Montevideo Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law for the First Decade of the Twenty-first Century.
At the Global Judges Symposium the participants, more than 120 Senior Judges and Chief Justices, adopted recommendations on how to improve the role of the judiciary and other stakeholders in promoting more effective implementation and enforcement of national environmental legislation. The Symposium gave new impetus to the development of a global programme for strengthening the capacity of critical groups of actors engaged in the process of implementation, compliance with and enforcement of domestic environmental law, with the objective of improving their effectiveness. This programme will be discussed at the Judges Ad Hoc Meeting.

The Meeting will be chaired by the Chief Justice of South Africa, Hon. Justice Arthur Chaskalson, who will present a description of the results of the August 2002 Johannesburg Global Judges Symposium and the suggestions developed at the Judges ad Hoc Meeting to the twenty-second session of the Governing Council of UNEP on 3 February 2003.
The strategy proposed by UNEP is to develop a plan of work that is globally conceived, planned and managed, regionally and sub-regionally delivered, and is nationally tailored and driven so as to be responsive to the needs of each country, for the capacity building of the above mentioned target groups in the field of environmental law. The programme is also designed so as to maximize impact by supporting and complementing similar capacity building activities carried out by other organizations, targeting similar or other interest groups (e.g. the private sector), by providing inputs such as training materials, web-site information, expertise and experiences developed for or gained through this initiative.