Turning Defenders into Defendants: The Use of Lawfare against Environmental Activists in Southeast Asia...

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Agung Wardana (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia)

Turning Defenders into Defendants

The Use of Lawfare against Environmental Activists in Southeast Asia

Agung Wardana (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia)

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English

Cambridge University Press
08 January 2026

Law & society; International human rights law; Environment law

Series: Transnational Environmental Law

This book documents the mobilisation of law to retaliate against, intimidate, and even punish environmental defenders in Southeast Asia. It draws on case studies from Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, which have taken measures to provide legal protection to environmental defenders by adopting anti-SLAPP provisions. Despite these provisions, attacks utilising legal means against environmental defenders have persisted. Environmental activists and local communities defending their livelihoods and the environment against the encroachment of extractive industries and state-backed development projects are turned into defendants before the courts. The book explains 1) the nature of legal attacks on environmental defenders in Southeast Asia, 2) the consequences of these attacks on environmental movements in those countries, and 3) the responses of environmental movements in navigating the existing politico-legal structures to resist these attacks and their strategies to strengthen the protection of environmental defenders in the region.

By: Agung Wardana (Universitas Gadjah Mada Indonesia)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 501g
ISBN: 9781009676649
ISBN 10: 1009676644
Series: Transnational Environmental Law
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 08 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction; Part I. Conceiving Law as Weapon: 1. Lawfare in environmental conflicts; Part II. Country Studies in Contexts: 2. Environmental politics and defenders' struggles; 3. Anti-SLAPP in environmental law; Part III. Strategic Dimensions of HEL: 4. Geographies and weaponry of lawfare; 5. Externalities of lawfare; 6. Resistance against lawfare; Conclusion.

Agung Wardana is an associate professor at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. He was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to undertake research at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Germany (2021–2024). He is the author of Contemporary Bali: Contested Space and Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).