KENYAN COURT STALLS ANIMAL EXPORT TO THAILAND

[Guest guest]

*http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=33953*

*Court halts Thai wildlife export deal

------------------------------

*

 

*By Judy Ogutu *

 

The High Court has halted the controversial export of animals to Thailand.

 

Justice Joseph Nyamu issued temporary orders suspending the deal, signed at

State House, Nairobi, on November 9. President Kibaki and Thailand Prime

minister Thaksin Shanawatra's signed a deal under which 175 wild animals

were to be shipped to the Asian country.

 

The then Foreign Affairs minister Ali Chirau Mwakwere signed the Memorandum

of Understanding on behalf of Kenya and his Thailand counterpart Dr Kantathi

Suphamongkhon on behalf of his country.

 

Nyamu's order will be operational for 60 days and the court reserves the

discretion to extend it. He also gave the Kenya Society for the Protection

and Care for Animals and two lobbies the go-ahead to seek orders prohibiting

the Minister for Tourism and Wildlife from shipping the animals to the Asian

country.

 

The animals include giraffes, flamingoes, hippos, zebras, warthogs,

dik-diks, impalas, buffaloes, gazelles, hyenas and jackals.

 

Nairobi CBO Consortium and Thomas Ondiba Aosa were also given the green

light to seek for orders quashing the decision to export the assorted game.

 

When the matter came up first, Justice Nyamu said the MoU signed between the

two countries was a treaty. He postponed the hearing to give all parties an

opportunity to satisfy the court whether the MoU was a treaty.

 

The minister and the Kenya Wildlife Services, an interested party, did not

attend the hearing on Tuesday, forcing the court to proceed without them.

The applicants, through their lawyer, Mbugua Mureithi argued that the MoU

was not a treaty.

 

A treaty, he added, was an international agreement between states and was

governed by international law.

 

" The object of the treaty is to create binding relations between the parties

to it. The MoU is non-binding. The scope of co-operation is subjected to

laws of the respective countries in accordance with regulations in force, "

Mureithi said.

 

The deal, he added, was an arrangement for mutual development assistance.

 

Nyamu said the applicants had, *on prima facie* basis, satisfied the court

that the agreement between the two nations might not be a treaty.

 

The three filed the suit on December 14, saying the minister had commenced

steps to identify, capture and move the assorted wildlife animals pursuant

to the MoU where the minister undertook to move the animals for custody in

zoos in Thailand.

 

While giving the orders, the judge also directed them to file and serve the

application as prescribed. He warned that failure to do so, the order would

lapse.

**Send to friend [image: Send to

friend]<http://www.eastandard.net/print/tofriend.php?articleid=33953>

------------------------------

Print friendly [image: Print

Friendly]<http://www.eastandard.net/print/news.php?articleid=33953>

------------------------------

 

Links to other Headlines

* *

**

**

**

**

**