Experts stress amendment of environmental laws

Environment experts have said that effective environmental protection is being severely hindered due to major loopholes in the environmental laws, particularly in the “Environment Court Act, 2010.”  

They made the observations at a webinar titled “The Role of Environmental Law and Courts in Mitigating Climate Chang” held on Wednesday to mark the World Environment Day 2026.

Since the people have no direct right to file lawsuits in the Environment Court, this special court is ineffective and the state of environmental justice in the country is nothing short of a paradox, they said.

The speakers stressed that saving the country’s environment will remain impossible unless the Environment Court Act and the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act are urgently amended.

The Center for Law and Policy Affairs (CLPA) and Poribosh Bachao Andolan (POBA) jointly arranged the webinar, where the speakers discussed critical issues regarding environmental laws, the effectiveness of the Environment Court, climate justice, and public participation.

Syed Mahbubul Alam Tahin, secretary of CLPA, presented the keynote paper in the webinar, while Kamrunnisa Munna, senior policy analyst at CLPA, moderated the event.

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The webinar was addressed, among others, by Mirza Shawkat Ali, director (climate change and international convention) at Department of Environment (DoE); Dr Md Akter Mahmud, a professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Jahangirnagar University; Prof Dr Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, dean of Faculty of Science at Stamford University; Dr Lelin Choudhury, president of POBA; Prof Dr Adil Mohammed Khan, director of IPD; Nishat Mahmood, a lawyer of Bangladesh Supreme Court; and Mesbah Uddin Ahmed Sumon, secretary of POBA.

The speakers said that amendment to the Environment Court Act and related laws is a must to ensure public access to the environment court and empower authorised officials and police to impose administrative fines.

The webinar put forward a set of comprehensive recommendations, including mandatory settlement of complaints upon receiving allegations from a complainant, transforming the DoE into a strictly enforcement-driven agency, introducing provisions to suspend or cancel the licenses of polluters, and enabling preemptive remedy measures when environmental pollution is anticipated.