- Lawyers in Nepal are increasingly turning to public interest litigation to demand accountability and stronger enforcement of environmental laws.
- They have filed public interest cases targeting issues like air pollution, deforestation, illegal quarrying and the misuse of protected areas.
- Their efforts have led to landmark rulings by the Supreme Court, including directives for better regulation and enforcement of existing laws. However, many of these rulings remain unimplemented due to government inaction and bureaucratic delay.
- Critics caution that while litigation is a powerful tool, it must be used judiciously, and that civil society must also mobilize to ensure environmental justice beyond the courtroom.
KATHMANDU — Recently, one morning in Kathmandu, senior lawyer Padam Bahadur Shrestha reclined in his cluttered second-floor office in a neighborhood near Nepal government’s administrative headquarters Singha Durbar.
On one side lay stacks of files pertaining to civil cases. On the other side, an equal number of files related to the country’s forests, rivers, flora and fauna.
“The civil cases allow me to earn a living for myself and my family,” Shrestha told Mongabay. “I take on the ones related to the environment out of passion.”
Driven by passion — and often drawing from their own pockets — lawyers such as Shrestha have, over the last few decades, stood in the vanguard of Nepal’s environmental legal battles, confronting corporate interests, challenging government policies and forcing authorities to implement laws.
They do all of this in the absence of a dedicated green tribunal — or specialized environmental court — such as the one in neighboring India, with judges having to look into a plethora of cases. And since they possess limited specialization in environmental law, they’re forced to walk a tightrope balancing the country’s development ambitions against the imperatives of conservation.
A landmark case that would define the development-versus-conservation debate in Nepal emerged in late July 2024, when the country’s parliament passed a controversial law permitting infrastructure projects within protected areas.
Shrestha along with two other veteran environmental lawyers, Prakash Mani Sharma and Dil Raj Khanal, and their associates convened in Kathmandu, determined to challenge the law.
After scouring through the country’s Constitution and relevant environmental laws, they prepared to take the government to court over the controversial law that would open up the country’s national parks and conservation areas to hydropower plants, hotels and railway lines in the name of “promoting investment” and improving the “business environment.”
They concluded that the new law posed an existential threat to Nepal’s hard-earned conservation achievements — especially in protecting iconic threatened species such as tigers (Panthera tigris) and rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) and reforesting degraded lands — and sacrifice them for the business interests of a few at the expense of frontline communities.
Despite the magnitude of the challenge and the gravity of the case, this was no uncharted territory for the trio. With decades of experience between them, they were well-versed in navigating Nepal’s judiciary. Shrestha said they also understood that many court rulings remain unenforced, leaving forests, rivers and communities exposed. Yet, they had no choice but to pursue the public interest litigation (PIL) route that would lead them to the country’s Supreme Court.
The relentless lawyer
The Supreme Court in Kathmandu was not only a city landmark but also a significant milestone in Shrestha’s life. It was here, when he was new to the city, he said, that he waited for hours for his cousin, an officer, hoping for guidance in navigating the urban maze.
Born to a farmer family in a mountain village in Taplejung, eastern Nepal, Shrestha’s early life was marked by hardships. As his family grew and found it difficult to sustain themselves in the hilly region, they moved to Jhapa in the southern plains in the early 1970s.
In Gauradaha, a settlement of eastern hill migrants in Jhapa, he struggled with his studies, failing his 10th-grade exams before passing at 22. He wasn’t a stranger to legal matters as his grandfather was a government official and his uncle Gyan Bahadur Shrestha was a non-gazetted government officer. He recalled his uncle often discussing court cases with his father. “It piqued my interest in law,” he said.
Denied permission by his father to move to Kathmandu for higher studies, Shrestha used his savings from selling drawings of kings and queens to make the journey himself. In the capital, his cousin, who worked at the Supreme Court, helped him land a job at a senior lawyer’s firm. Juggling work and studies, he eventually earned a master’s degree in law. He said it was only when he studied that he realized the significance of environmental law. “But my professor told me not to pursue it as no environmental lawyer made money.”
Since then, Shrestha’s legal battles have covered everything from visual pollution in Kathmandu to illegal sand mining and deforestation.
At 60, he has no plans of slowing down. “Where will the wild animals go? How will they survive?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern. “If we don’t stand up today, there will be nothing left for the next generation.”
The forest defender
On another afternoon recently, lawyer Dil Raj Khanal, stood at the podium of the Supreme Court in Kathmandu facing two judges.
The 53-year-old was representing the petitioners of Gulmi district in Lumbini province, where the local municipality had leased an area inside Resunga Forest, home to common leopards (Panthera pardus), barking deer (<Muntiacus muntjak), ghorals (Naemorhedus goral) and more than 200 bird species, to a hotel chain.
The courtroom filled with heated discussions that pitted infrastructure development against conservation, echoing a national debate in the country undergoing a rapid infrastructure expansion. As the government prioritizes tourism and large-scale development, private companies push further into forests, often bypassing environmental laws.
Since the end of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency in 2006 and the adoption of a new Constitution in 2015, economic growth and infrastructure development have been the government’s rallying cry for prosperity.
But this unchecked push — for example, the haphazard road construction in fragile hills and taxpayer-funded concrete towers on the hilltops — has come at a cost: It has fueled deforestation, land encroachment and the erosion of heritage sites. Businesses eye natural resources such as forests and rivers for extractive industries, and protected areas offer lucrative returns if they can secure licenses.
For Khanal, the fight to protect Nepal’s forests is both personal and professional. He grew up in Shitganga Rural Municipality-2 of Arghakhanchi district in a large farming family, spending his childhood exploring the surrounding forests and encountering wildlife. His elder brother, a land reform officer, encouraged him to study law, seeing its role in land disputes. After finishing the 10th grade, Khanal pursued an Intermediate in Law in Butwal in the country’s southern plains before earning a bachelor’s degree from Nepal Law Campus in Kathmandu in 1997.
His legal career took a defining turn when he joined the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN), a nationwide network of forest user groups. He became a legal advisor to the NGO, later taking on managerial roles as well.
His association with FECOFUN has consistently put him at odds with powerful interests seeking to develop protected lands.
In the mid-1990s, he assisted residents from Morang district’s Sukuna village in eastern Nepal resist deforestation for a university expansion. But the petitioners later withdrew their case under pressure. A group of people visited his Kathmandu office and threatened him over his involvement. But he refused to back down.
The trailblazer
In his three-decade career as a lawyer, Prakash Mani Sharma Bhusal has taken on powerful industries and government policies in court. His journey — from a small village in Kapilvastu district to shaping landmark environmental laws — illustrates how one determined lawyer can change the course of a nation’s environmental policies.
Bhusal’s defining case came in the early 1990s when environmentalists challenged the operations of Godavari Marbles, a factory accused of harming biodiversity in the lush Godavari Forest near Kathmandu. The legal battle lasted more than two decades.
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the forest’s conservation, ordering the factory’s closure. “The government had renewed the factory’s license repeatedly despite clear evidence of environmental damage. This verdict finally stopped it,” Bhusal said.
In the late 1980s, he moved to India to pursue a law degree at Delhi University, focusing on commercial law. However, his path shifted after he was inspired by M.C. Mehta, the renowned public interest lawyer whose legal battles forced thousands of polluting industries to shut down in New Delhi. “I saw that one person could bring change,” Bhusal said. “That was a turning point for me.”
After realizing that he needed an organization to fight the legal battles, Bhusal co-founded Pro Public, an NGO that has led numerous environmental and public interest litigation cases in Nepal. Through Pro Public, he has fought cases ranging from pollution in the Bagmati River to unregulated groundwater extraction.
A 2006 Pro Public case not only led to a ban on smoking in public places but also a control in tobacco advertising. “The courts have established crucial principles — polluters must pay, and intergenerational justice matters,” he said. “We contributed to these laws. That’s a huge achievement.”
Shifting his focus from the environmental hazards of Kathmandu Valley to the towering Himalayas, Bhusal took on one of Nepal’s most pressing challenges: climate change in the Sagarmatha (Everest) region.
In 2004, he teamed up with veteran Sherpa climbers Pemba Dorjee Sherpa and Temba Tsheri Sherpa to petition UNESCO to list Sagarmatha National Park as an endangered site due to the climate crisis. Though UNESCO ultimately rejected the petition, Bhusal said he believes it was a crucial step in bringing global attention to the risks the world’s highest peak faces.
At 66, Bhusal now teaches public interest law at Lumbini Buddhist University, near his home in Kapilvastu district, mentoring the next generation of legal warriors. One of his protégés, Sanjay Adhikari, is already making his mark running fellowships for aspiring public interest lawyers. “These are important initiatives,” Bhusal said. “If we don’t fight today, there will be nothing left for the next generation.”
Legal activism by environmental lawyers in Nepal has garnered praise but also criticism. While the Supreme Court’s verdicts are final and carry significant weight, some argue that relying too heavily on legal action may not always serve the best interests of the environment or future generations.
Critics, including right-to-nature activist Shrawan Sharma, argue that the court’s decisions, though impactful, may not always align with the principles of inter-generational equity. Sharma said that civil society must take a proactive role in influencing policymakers and protesting decisions that harm the environment. He pointed out that the judicial system should be a “last resort” tool, and over-relying on it could diminish its effectiveness in driving real change.
A report by journalist Praju Panta in Ukeraa, a Nepali media outlet, highlights a significant gap between judicial rulings and their implementation in Nepal’s environmental governance. According to the report, the Supreme Court of Nepal has itself acknowledged that many of its decisions related to environmental protection remain unfulfilled.
Key directives such as those aimed at controlling air pollution from vehicles and industries, conserving forests, and protecting natural resources have either faced delays or been neglected altogether.
Panta further pointed out a striking example of this implementation gap: Although the Supreme Court ruled 15 years ago that an environmental tribunal should be established to fast-track environment-related cases, this directive has still not been acted upon.
But on the afternoon of Jan. 15, none of that mattered to senior lawyer Shrestha as he witnessed the final hearing for the day sitting among the audience of the constitutional bench. “Looks like we will finally have a verdict today,” he told Mongabay as he approached the bench. One of the judges told him to wait for a few minutes.
The verdict came late in the evening by means of a statement from the court. It said that the court had struck down controversial measures to open up protected areas like national parks to infrastructure development such as hydropower plants, hotels and railway lines.
Banner image: Nepali lawyers Padam Bahadur Shrestha and Dilra Khanal in front of Nepal’s Supreme Court. Image by Dipendra Dungana.
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