Co-authored with: Joyce Melcar Tan, Teresa Ira Maris Guanzon, et al.
Volume 35 (2014), 371-47
Nearly a decade after the Philippines began promoting renewable energy through legislation, the country has seen gains and encountered roadblocks in its transition to low carbon. This paper examines the Philippines’ experience in attempting a governed energy transition. The Philippines is a developing country with substantial economic growth aspirations, yet it cannot ignore climate change, because it has already begun suffering the phenomenon’s early impacts. It is among the most vulnerable to climate change, so it has great interest in mitigating global carbon emissions. … Read more
Co-authored with: Kate A. Barry and Bhanumathi Kalluri
Volume 23 (2018)
Conflicts over natural resources affect millions of people in developing countries. Because they vary in terms of context, intensity, interactions between parties, and local and international implications, natural resource conflicts have different potential for transformation. Exchanges that involve communication, learning, and network development between individuals or groups in different countries within the Global South, what we call south-to-south exchanges, may have the potential to enhance capacities in addressing natural resource conflicts. … Read more
Volume 88 (2014), 195-239
Philippine environmental law can be explored in three themes: failure, progress, and the future. The history of Philippine environmental laws reveals several failures in the areas of indigenous peoples’ rights, logging and mining, air pollution, the state of the Manila Bay, climate change and disaster risk reduction, the lack of renewable energy, and coastal/marine resources and fishers. We have, however, relatively made progress, primarily through the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, which has provided a means for the protection and prevention of further environmental degradation. … Read more
Co-authored with: Nico Robert R. Martin and Josef Leroi Garcia
Volume 90 (2017), 218-277
This paper examines the impact of the iconic Poe-Llamanzares decision on various bodies of jurisprudence in the Philippines. It begins by tracing the history of Philippine citizenship and then proposes a framework with which to view the Philippine legal concept of citizenship. This framework will be helpful in understanding the novel issue of a foundling’s citizenship faced by the Supreme Court in the Poe-Llamanzares case. This paper painstakingly outlines each Justice’s opinion and condenses hundreds of pages of writing into a more succinct form. … Read more
Co-authored with: Alaya M. de Leon and Gregorio Rafael P. Bueta
Volume 86 (2012), 284-340
Mineral activities and operations necessarily carry with them various environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts, which due to the nature of mining may be negative in many instances. The Philippine legal system thus provides various standards to mitigate or alleviate such impacts, in order to maintain a viable mining industry by confronting its undesirable effects. This article will focus on the environmental impacts of mining and how the current legal and policy system seeks to address them. … Read more
Volume 69 (1994), 127-156
Mineral activities and operations necessarily carry with them various environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts, which due to the nature of mining may be negative in many instances. The Philippine legal system thus provides various standards to mitigate or alleviate such impacts, in order to maintain a viable mining industry by confronting its undesirable effects. This article will focus on the environmental impacts of mining and how the current legal and policy system seeks to address them. … Read more
Co-authored with: Alaya M. de Leon
Volume 62 (2018), 703-727
This Article describes and analyzes the evolution of the global regime on climate and tropical forests. The Authors explain how the climate and tropical forest agenda became part of the processes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — from its marginal role in the Clean Development Mechanism created by the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, to the central role it played in the UNFCCC agenda with the emergence of the approach called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the Role of Conservation, Sustainable Management of Forests and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks in Developing Countries (REDD+). … Read more
Volume 53 (2009), 957-1003
From its origins in European environmental policy in the 1980s, there has been increasing global acceptance of the Precautionary Principle as a core approach and guiding principle for decision-making on matters that impact the environment and human health. Indeed, from its articulation in Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development to its incorporation in many other international agreements, the principle is now well-enshrined in the field of international environmental law. … Read more
Co-authored with: Clarissa C. David and Jenna Mae L. Atun
Volume 20 (2010), 337-353
This study compares frames constructed by two sides of the Philippine population management debate with media frames of the issue. Analysis was conducted through neural network analysis with the CatPac computer program. On the one hand, supporters of the policy use a ‘development frame’ which defines population as a problem borne out of people having large families; it is argued that unchecked population growth negatively impacts on development outcomes such as education and income. … Read more
Co-authored with: Gretchen Hoff and Anne Marie DeRose
Volume 23 (2003), 53-70
This article analyzes the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg, South Africa from late August to early September 2002. Convened ten years after the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, the WSSD was an attempt to move forward with sustainable development efforts by setting implementation strategies, answering questions of accountability, and forming partnerships that go beyond traditional boundaries. … Read more
Co-authored with: Anne R. Kapuscinski, Robert M. Goodman, et al.
Volume 21 (2003), 599-601
A critical challenge facing the advocates of biotechnology is to fortify the biosafety of genetically engineered organisms. Readers of this journal have seen competing notions on how to achieve biosafety. For some, scientists carry the burden of designing better biosafety through ‘backup safety precautions’ and ‘molecular gene-containment strategies’. Some have advocated that industry should take the lead in adopting more stringent safety criteria. … Read more
Volume 3 (1994), 246-252
The Minors Oposa v. Factoran case is not, strictly speaking, the first environmental case in the Philippines. Indeed, there is a long line of decisions in Philippine jurisprudence involving natural resources utilization, including cases concerning ownership of timber resources, disputes over timber licence agreements, pollution and nuclear powers. The Supreme Court has rendered decisions over the conversion of agricultural land to non-agrarian uses (such as industrial or residential). … Read more
Tony La Viña 