Abstract

International law has opened up new legal realms such as environmental law. It has the capacity to regulate practice of states with different formulations from the binding rules to mere recommendations in the form of memorandums of understanding. One of the challenging issues is sand and dust storms that has caused considerable inconveniences for people in affected regions. Only one regional agreement has been made in this regard under ASEAN. In this paper, the agreement is introduced, its strengths and weaknesses are stated and its applicability in southwestern Asia is evaluated using a descriptive – analytical method. The paper reaches the conclusion that the ASEAN agreement is a significant document that can combat haze pollution crisis but suffer from some flaws that should be resolved while formulating new agreements. Imposing definite environmental obligations on parties, establishing compulsory fund and resorting to judicial dispute settlement procedures should be included in new agreements.

Keywords: international environmental law, dust storms, ASEAN, regional agreements.

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