While the governments in South Asia have largely turned a blind eye to dumping of waste – and have even encouraged the process for short term gains – it is the courts that have been proactively involved in protecting the people.

Given that all nations in South Asia are signatories to the Basel convention, the governments are empowered to international dumping of waste. And yet, in most cases they have done little to protect South Asia.

In Pakistan, Musharraf’s government has invited shipping industries to use Pakistani land and labor in the process of breaking ships and is even providing incentives, to compete with the India and Bangladesh. In India, subsidies are being provided to multi-national companies to set up technologies that are highly toxic and are effectively banned in Europe and the USA.

The courts, however, have taken a different stand so far. The Kathmandu Declaration was, perhaps, a key signpost in their commitment to environmental justice in South Asia. The judicial leadership of South Asia committed to protecting South Asia from environmental dumping recognizing that it is the poorest who are most exploited in such processes.

In India, the Supreme Court has created processes to proactively investigate and follow-up on waste dumps. Even the state level courts have been quite committed to the cause of environmental justice. Examples abound.

In Bhopal, while numerous state governments have ignored or even attempted to shut down the compensation, medical and remediation processes – even claiming that the Union Carbide Gas Tragedy was now a thing of the past – it is the courts that have ensured that affected people continue to get the support that is theirs. In fact, it is the courts that have asked the government to hand over compensatory money from Union Carbide to the people.

The Supreme Court has even set up a Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) with real powers to file cases and make charges. This committee involving members of civic society and experts have performed yeoman service. It is this committee that filed charges against Hindustan Lever for its dumping of tones of mercury in Kodaikanal, ensuring that the mercury was retrieved and sent back to its parent company and compensation was made available to the local committee. While the communities around the dump site are still to receive compensation, the speed of action was largely owing to such proactive judicial interest.

Similarly, it is the courts that have brought charges of pesticides against such giants as Coca Cola and Pepsico. Even while the representatives of the people have fiddled, the Rajasthan High Court ruled that the companies must list all pesticides in their beverages as ingredients.

It is this body that has filed charges against Aventis – another bio-based MNC – for creating a fake company to inappropriately dispose off its mercury wastes.

The judicial system has often pulled up the governments to protect local communities from dumping. In Delhi, while the state government lacked the political will to take on worsening air pollution, the courts passed a ruling requiring the all public transport use CNG. Similarly, the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee ensured that the Tamil Nadu Pollution Board monitored the growing dumping of pollution by industries and municipalities in Cuddalore that has made life difficult.

In Gujarat, various civic groups had been warning against systematic toxic dumping by local industries into the groundwater, with the local pollution board ignoring these warnings. Members of the civic groups had even been beaten up during environmental impact assessment meetings conducted by the board for raising these issues. It was owing to the involvement of the SCMC that one of the most egregious violators – Hema Chemicals – was shut down bringing chromium dumping to an end in the region.

However, in the absence of government support, sustained solution to these problems is impossible. While the court has passed a verdict that Hema Chemicals compensate the local communities, that will not happen without government action.

While the actions by the courts give much confidence to civic society, the reach of the courts is quite limited. Given the immense pile up of cases, and all its other responsibilities, the courts can only take up a few such cases.

It is most disheartening that the elected representatives of our communities – and the institutions in which they participate – have been largely oblivious, often with personal gain, to the externalities that are continuously dumped on larger communities.

While the courts have recognized the dumping of externalities is an extremely exploitative process, the governments continue to ignore this reality and sustained action to stop such dumping is impossible. In such a scenario, the only process open to citizens is to increase pressure on their representatives to end dumping of externalities.

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