[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's environmental law news, the first Asia-Pacific Development and Climate Partnership Ministerial Meeting [backgrounder] has opened in Sydney, Australia. The meeting brings representatives from the US, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and India together to set up projects to create emissions reduction technology and promote the transfer of that technology between the nations. The US and Australian governments have said that this partnership between the six nations will be better and more effective in reducing global air pollution than the Kyoto Protocol [text], which the US and Australia have not ratified and which does not obligate China or India to reduce emissions. The Australia Age has more.

In other environmental law news…

• The Philippine Department of the Environment [official website] has fined the Lafayette Mining Ltd. [corporate website], an Australian company, 10.4 million pesos (US$198,000) over two cyanide spills that occurred in October. Additional daily penalties will be imposed until the company meets conditions set by the government for cleanup of the spills and improving conditions at the mine. Reuters has more.
• The US Department of Energy [official website] agreed [press release] Monday to create a new Environmental Impact Statement on shipments of nuclear and hazardous wastes to the Hanford site [official website] on the Columbia river in Washington state. The new EIS is part of a settlement between the DOE and Washington over alleged inadequacies of the original EIS [PDF text]. AP has more.