Institutional resources Sample Clauses

Institutional resources enforcement power, managerial skills and authority Table 1.1 Implementation approaches Enforcement approach Management approach Normative approach

Institutional resources. The first ‘wave’ of ‘access to justice’ reforms in the 1970s focussed on providing legal aid to those unable to afford legal services. Such reforms were undertaken, as the high cost of legal services was perceived to be one of the greatest obstacles to access to justices in many countries.46 For even where a satisfactory legal framework is in place, potential litigants may only initiate public interest suits where they possess the necessary institutional and financial resources, more often than not lacking in the majority of countries. Legal aid programs in Western countries such as Australia and the UK are usually directed towards areas of private law, and any support for environmental public interest suits has been the exception rather than the rule. Not surprisingly, governments have been generally reluctant to fund such legal actions given they are often directed at their own regulatory agencies.47 In the United States environmental public interest law firms have been funded largely by membership organisations including the Conservation Law Firm, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Most of these membership-based organisations started out as fledgling, volunteer groups, but by the 1990s had evolved into influential national organisations with considerable membership bases and organisational incomes.48 In developing countries, the necessary political and economic conditions for such organisations generally do not exist, yet in many instances environmental public interest groups in such countries have been able to obtain funding from foreign aid agencies, in addition to using volunteer assistance. The issue of institutional resources is also relevant to the ability of the judiciary to perform the functions discussed above. In the institution building model developed by Xxxxx and Xxxxx and applied by Xxxx to judicial institutions, the internal resources of an institution are a significant 45 Xxxxxxxx, "Public Interest Environmental Law- Commentary and Analysis," p303. 46 Xxxxxxxxxxx and Xxxxx, "Access to Justice: The Worldwide Movement to Make Rights Effective," p10. 47 Xxxxxxxx, "Public Interest Environmental Law- Commentary and Analysis," p311. 48 For example, in 1992 the National Resources Defense Council had an income of $18 million and a membership base of 170,000. A significant role has also been played by smaller public interest law firms, including environmental law ‘clinics’...