The Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions on regular interactions have adversely impacted students’ activities, including participation in international events. Despite these challenges, the ASEAN Youth Dialogue Competition (ASOC 2021) was organised on 21 and 22 August 2021 by the Asian Law Students’ Association (ALSA) of the Faculty of Law of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTMLaw), the Environmental Law and Awareness Club (EnLAC) of UiTMLaw, the Asian Law Students’ Association of International Islamic University Malaysia (ALSA IIUM) and the Eco-Club of IIUM, in collaboration with Universitas Indonesia and Miriam College University of Philippines.
Delegates from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand took part in this event. The competition highlighted environmental issues permeating ASEAN countries, such as marine regulation and eco-tourism. Each team in the competition represented an ASEAN country to solve these issues.
The delegates presented their propositions on behalf of designated countries before learned experts on the topics who acted as judges, on how the issues have affected their respective nations and discussed international efforts and methods to resolve such matters from the perspective of International Law.
The ASOC 2021 commenced with a forum on “Climate Change and the Paris Agreement: Prospects and challenges of reaching the 2C Threshold” with Mr Matthew Baird, the Director of Asian Research Institute for Environmental Law and Mr Sean D Tseng, a lawyer at Messrs Allen & Gledhill LLP and a research fellow at Asia Pacific Centre for Environment Law, National University of Singapore, as the panellists.
In continuation with the theme of the competition around issues of marine regulation and eco-tourism, a closing dialogue was delivered by Professor Angelica M Baylon, the Director for External Relations at the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) & the Global Chair and President Emeritus of the Philippines Association of Extension Program Implementers (PAEPI), as well as by Ms Abigail Aguilar, Regional Campaign Strategist for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Through this collaborative effort, UiTMLaw strives to ensure that its students stay connected with their national and international peers as global cooperation and connectivity through intellectual discourses prove vital to strengthen environmental law in Southeast Asia.