A Legal Proposal for the Creation of Conservation Agreements in Thailand

: A Comparative Study

Abstract

A ‘Conservation Agreement’ (CA) is a voluntary conservation tool implemented in many jurisdictions to conserve features on land. Its very nature as a private law instrument imposing obligations running with the land, even when it changes hands, makes a CA different from a simple private agreement and other conservation techniques which operate on the basis of command and control regulation. This conservation technique is in place in Australia, the UK and USA, but not in Thailand, where the laws relating to land conservation are mostly reliant on command and control regulation.

This thesis explores the potential for legal development of CAs in Thailand. It employs a doctrinal research approach and comparative analysis of law to uncover whether a legal framework for the establishment of CAs should be made and if so, what provisions should be proposed to make them operate alongside existing laws relating to nature conservation.

The concepts of environmental regulation and voluntary environmental agreements are reviewed as underlying ideas behind the laws in place in Thailand and the comparator jurisdictions. They uncover the room for implementing CAs to work alongside command and control measures. A doctrinal research method is used to illustrate the application of the relevant laws in Thailand and the comparator jurisdictions, as well as to identify the room for the establishment of CAs in Thailand. The use of a comparative technique by comparing and analysing strengths and weaknesses of CA-enabling laws implemented in Australia, the UK and USA uncovers standard legal features of CA-enabling laws and identifies their strengths and weaknesses. These findings are subsequently employed to develop a possible legal model for Thailand.

After the comparative study has been conducted, this thesis develops and proposes a legal proposal for Thailand. The thesis also identifies strengths and weaknesses of the proposal and suggests some limitations of the legal proposal and room for further study.

This thesis provides two original contributions to academia. The first is the examination of how the application of CA-enabling laws can be analysed from regulatory and legal perspectives. The second is the creation of a legal proposal for the implementation of CAs in Thailand.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Sponsors	Thammasat University
Supervisor	Colin Reid (Supervisor), Sarah Hendry (Supervisor) & Petra Minnerop (Supervisor)