I am pleased once again to address this August gathering of chief justices and other legal luminaries of the world who have honored this conference with their participation.
I wish to salute Mr Jagdish Gandhi and his gallant colleagues at the City Montessori School (CMS) for the foresight and commitment they continue to demonstrate by organizing this conference whose theme continues to be "Enforceable International law is the Need of the Hour" I am grateful to Mr Gandhi for the kind invitation and the warm hospitality extended to us since our arrival here and in Delhi.

In order to achieve this noble goal we must be prepared collectively and individually to take concrete and realistic steps at both national and international levels. The Chinese have a saying that a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. Each of us must be prepared to take that single step. At the last Conference in December last year, after considering the appeal by children of CMS on behalf of the children of the world, for a safe and protected environment and a peaceful world governed by international law, we adopted five resolutions to guide us in achieving this goal. It is imperative that at these Conferences we review our performance during the previous year, and set new targets for the future.

How have we fared in Uganda in implementing these resolutions? The first resolution declared that peace education should be given proper importance in educational curriculum throughout the world.

Educational institutions are important nursery beds for planting the ideas of peace, unity, love, to leranceand cooperation. We must use these institutions to preach and spread the message of peace and good will towards all mankind.

In Uganda we have developed a peace education syllabus for Schools and Colleges which the Government has accepted and is now being incorporated in the National civic Curriculum for schools. We have also recommended that human rights education should be introduced in schools and Colleges so that children learn about human rights and obligations so that a human rights culture is cultivated among the youth and ultimately the citizenry. The Ministry of Education has positively responded to this proposal.
The second conference resolution stated that steady and consistent effort be undertaken in each jurisdiction to increase the level of awareness and information about international law in the legal training of lawyers and judges and in continuing judicial education to this end.

In Uganda in order to broaden the training of lawyers, the subject of Public international law has been made compulsory in most law schools. This follows the adoption of recommendations made by the Committee on the Review of Legal Education Training and Accreditation in Uganda which I chaired in 1995. The curriculum for continuing judicial education conducted by the Uganda Judicial Studies institute contains international law subjects, which include domestication of international law, domestic application of human rights norms, jurisprudence of equality environmental law, refugee law, child law and rights human trafficking, terrorism, genocide, crimes against humanity and the role of international Criminal Court. This training has enabled the Courts to take an activist role in the protection of human rights.

For example, the constitutional court has held that mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional and that the Courts must have discretion to pass a lesser sentence depending on the circumstances of the case in order to protect the right to life. The court has also held that the sentence of corporal punishment is unconstitutional as it contravenes the protection from torture, inhuman and degrading punishment or treatment provided in the Bill of Rights. The Court has held that the offence of publishing a false rumour under the Penal Code contravenes the freedom of the press and other media guaranteed by the Constitution. The Constitutional Court has held that the provision in the Divorce Act requiring a husband to prove one ground to obtain divorce but a wife to prove two grounds was discriminatory and offended the principle of equality before the law and was therefore unconstitutional.

We have promoted the idea of Enforceable international law at several conferences and meeting in Africa. At the last meeting of the Southern African Judges Commission held in Maseru Lesotho, early this year, The Project leader of this Conference Mr Sandeep Srivastava, I and other Chief Justice notably from Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland made presentations to over ten Chief Justices, marketing the idea of promoting Enforceable International Law through Conferences of Chief Justices of the world and similar activities internationally and nationally. The Chief Justices were impressed with the idea and several expressed interest in participating in the Conferences and related programmes.

At the Human Rights Today Symposium held in Nairobi, Kenya on 8th September 2007 , I delivered a keynote address on the topic "Is Enforceable International Law the Need of the Hour" the main message in my address was that the current State of international law and its institutions were inadequate to address the complex world problems of the 21st Century which include wars, armed conflicts, accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, gross violation of human rights poverty hunger bad governance and environment destruction.

The status quo can not guarantee our children and future generations a safe and secure future .What we need now is a new world order based on enforceable international law promulgated by a world people's Parliament executed or administered by a democratic world government and enforced by a world Court with compulsory jurisdiction. One way of achieving this goal is to reform democratize and strengthen the united nations for effective global governance. The participants who included Chief justices judges Lawyers and Human rights activists were very receptive to the presentation and many expressed interest in participating in the prgramme.

At both the Nairobi Human Rights Today symposium and the 15th Commonwealth law Conference held from 9th to 14th September 2007 the issue of environment protection and global governance were discussed Prof. Mathai Wangari of Kenya who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to protect the environment through her green belt movement was one of the key presenters on the subject .She urged the delegates to preserve and promote a clean and health environment by each of them planting 10 trees and discarding the use of the polythene bags which degrade the environment. Unless we take serious measures to protect the environment the effects of climate change and global warming which are responsible for green house gases will cause a major ecological disaster which we never recover from .I am glad that the Un has planned to hold a world conference on climate change.

In Uganda, The judiciary has been at the forefront of protecting the environment. In two court cases, the indiscriminate use of polythene bags and smoking in public were successfully challenged as a violation of the right to a clean and healthy environment guaranteed by Article 39 of the Constitution of Uganda. Consequently the government banned smoking in public except in designated areas, and prohibited the importation and use of thin polythene bags of a specified thickness.

In accordance with the third resolution of the last conference, we have communicated the contents of the resolution to all judicial organizations in Uganda and East Africa, especially the Uganda judicial officers Association (UJOA) and East African magistrates and judges Association (EAMJA) Southern African judges Commission (SAJC) and the Commonwealth Magistrates and judges Association (EMJA) we have requested them to implement the resolutions.

We must stress the crucial role played by the judiciary and legal profession in promoting justice freedom and rule of law .The Courts must be pro-active in protecting fundamental rights and freedoms though liberal and purposive interpretation which advances rather than limits basic human rights. Courts must be prepared to take effective action whenever the occasion arises to protect and promote the best interests of children giving full effect to all applicable principles of domestic and international law.

In Uganda, when the Courts are determining questions relation to children the child's best interests or welfare is the paramount Consideration. The Courts decide such questions expeditiously so as not to prejudice the welfare of the child courts have been careful in granting inter-country adoption to prevent child trafficking the courts have imposed heavy sentences against those found guilty of defiling young girls to protect the future of the girl child .Children must not be detained together with adults and must be tried in special family and children courts established under the children Act where the goal is reformation rather than punishment of the child it should be observed that the Constitution specifically provides for rights of children including the right to basic education Ten years ago the Uganda Government introduced Universal Primary education (UPE) and this year, Universal secondary Education (USE) has been introduced thus greatly improving access to education for all children.

The Judiciary must live to its responsibility of being the last hope for mankind and create a new a world order built on sound human and moral principles including justice equality, peace freedom and social justice. We must be prepared to die for this noble cause for which we are the vanguards. For as martin Luther king Jr. said" A man who is not prepared to die for an idea is not worth living "We must be prepared to walk the talk.

I thank you for your attention.