South China Morning Post | Haze crisis in Southeast Asia sparks fresh blame game, as green groups urge laws to deter ‘bad apples’

In the interview, Jia Yaw spoke about how having country-specific domestic laws is inadequate to tackle the regional problem. This is due to the “legal silos” of each country as they have limited extra-territorial reach on multinational corporations operating beyond their borders.

He suggested that ASEAN member states should instead build on the 2002 ASEAN Transboundary Haze Pollution Agreement to enable effective legal cooperation between the countries. An area of focus should be the regional sharing of corporate sustainability data and strengthening the monitoring and governance of transnational businesses operating in sensitive sectors that affect the risk of fires, particularly plantation industries. Where ASEAN has made great strides in the ease of doing business, it needs to catch up quickly on improving the ease of holding polluters and their enablers to account.

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https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3236656/haze-crisis-southeast-asia-sparks-fresh-blame-game-green-groups-urge-laws-deter-bad-apples?campaign=3236656&module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article