Meeting Asia’s Asbestos Challenges
Recent developments in East and Southeast Asia have highlighted the continued importance of bilateral and multinational collaborations in the struggle to address national asbestos legacies. The exchange of information and the sharing of expertise remain essential tools in neutralizing the efforts of industry lobbyists who continue to actively promote the interests of asbestos stakeholders at national, regional and international forums.
Whilst grassroots activism on the asbestos hazard began more than 50 years ago, the emergence of an international network took somewhat longer. Finally, towards the end of the 20th century moves were made to coordinate multinational action on asbestos and promote calls for a global ban:
| 1991 | Inaugural meeting of Ban Asbestos Network (BAN) at the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France; |
| 1992 | Second meeting of BAN, Strasbourg, France; |
| 1993 | BAN Milan Reunion; |
| 1994 | International Seminar – Asbestos: Controlled Use or Ban? São Paulo, Brazil; |
| 1996 | BAN Seminar, Strasbourg, France.1 |
These events culminated in 2000 with the Global Asbestos Congress: Past, Present & Future (GAC 2000) which was held in the Brazilian city of Osasco, the site of Latin America’s largest asbestos-cement factory.
 Members of the Brazilian Association of the Asbestos-Exposed (ABREA), the prime movers of the GAC 2000. Photo courtesy of ABREA. |
The news of this event sent shockwaves to asbestos stakeholders who had, until then, aggressively capitalized on their stranglehold on the global discourse, setting the terms of reference, wielding made-to-measure “scientific evidence” and using a carrot and stick approach to create conditions in which sales of the “magic mineral” (asbestos) could flourish. Amongst the participants at GAC 2000 were delegates from Japan, Hong Kong and Korea who returned home determined to take the asbestos fight to Asia. Four years later, they achieved that with the Global Asbestos Congress 2004 which was attended by 800 delegates from 40+ countries.2
 Organizers, supporters and sponsors of GAC 2004 in Tokyo, Japan. Photo courtesy of Sugio Furuya. |
The landmark conference in Japan was followed by other initiatives which signalled the spread of the grassroots ban asbestos movement to key Asian countries including Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, South Korea and Thailand. In the post-Covid era, there has been a resurgence of campaigning, as illustrated by news discussed below from Cambodia, Korea and Indonesia.
On August 27-29, 2025, scores of organizers, speakers and delegates participated in an educational event on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases caused by exposures to asbestos and silica – Improving Diagnosis and Response to Occupational Cancers: Asbestos and Dust Related Diseases – which was held in the capital city of Cambodia.3
 Opening of the medical training workshop in Phnom Penh. Picture courtesy of the Health Ministry, Cambodia. |
Speakers featured during the three days of presentations and discussions included representatives from the Cambodian Government, the World Health Organization, Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA, Australia’s Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency (ASSEA) and Asbestos and Dust Diseases Research Institute (ADDRI), as well as clinical experts and specialists on epidemiology, radiology, pathology, oncology, and lung cancer nursing. This initiative was made possible through a collaborative process involving the Cambodian Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the Asian Development Bank, the Australian Embassy in Cambodia, APHEDA and others.4
 From left: Kim Brislane from ADDRI and Liz Darlison from Mesothelioma UK launching the international nursing development scheme on August 27, 2025. Picture courtesy of Mesothelioma UK. |
During the Phnom Penh conference, Liz Darlison from Mesothelioma UK and ADDRI’s CEO Kim Brislane launched The International Mesothelioma Nurse Development Grant Program. This initiative will sponsor nurses “from low- and middle-income countries to travel to the UK to work with, and learn from the specialist Mesothelioma UK nurses.”
In an August 27, 2025 press release, Kim Brislane, CEO of Australia’s Asbestos Dust Diseases Research Institute (ADDRI), emphasized the collaborative background to the program:
“As the World Health Organization’s first Collaborating Centre for the Elimination of Asbestos Related Diseases, ADDRI has worked closely with medical professionals on high-impact projects to raise awareness and share expertise on the diagnosis, treatment and care of people with asbestos related diseases not only in Australia but also in Southeast Asia and Latin America. This will be our first project aimed specifically at nurses and we are very excited about the enormous potential such training can have and the benefits it will bring to patients!”5
On September 14, 2025, delegates from Korea, Japan & India took part in the Korea–Japan Asbestos Seminar which was held in Seoul.6 Subjects discussed included: Characteristics of the Asbestos Elimination Movement in Korea, An Asbestos-cement Case Study from Busan, Asbestos in Korean Schools, Update on Japan's Asbestos Eradication Program and Japan's Asbestos Victims’ Relief and Benefit Systems, and strategies to promote asbestos bans throughout Asia.7 According to a press statement issued by the Citizens' Center for Environmental Health (Eco-Health) – one of the co-organizers of the event:
“Japanese participants were curious about how Korea's policy to remove asbestos from all schools was formulated and implemented, and a discussion ensued about the background. Korean participants were curious about the process of securing legal responsibility for asbestos damage in Japan, and raised the need for detailed research on the Japanese case to determine whether similar efforts are feasible in Korea.”8
On September 15, members of the Japanese delegation participated in meetings with officials from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Labor to discuss asbestos policies, after which they visited Hongseong County in Chungcheongnam-do Province to inspect asbestos-cement removal sites and learn about related administrative measures adopted by local governments.
For over 20 years, collaborations between Korean and Japanese asbestos campaigners have been hugely beneficial to the populations in both countries. The recent meetings marked a post-pandemic resurgence of activity and renewed participants’ determination to share Korea’s and Japan’s asbestos experiences with activists in “other Asian countries where asbestos use is still widespread in order to ban hazardous asbestos use across the region and introduce systems to support asbestos victims.”
 |
Photographs released by the Citizens’ Center for Environmental Health under the banner “Let’s Ban Asbestos from Asia Through Korea–Japan Solidarity” show the dynamism and enthusiasm stimulated by the renewal of the bilateral collaboration.
 |
 |
 Images from the Ban Asbestos Protest in Seoul, South Korea. September 14, 2025. Pictures courtesy of Citizens’ Center for Environmental Health. |
In legal proceedings last month (September 2025) at the Central Jakarta District Court, Indonesia the importance of international solidarity was once again underscored. In the dock were individuals working for civil society groups which had petitioned the Indonesian Supreme Court to mandate the use of hazard warnings on all asbestos-cement roofing materials.9
 |
 Protesters outside the Central Jakarta District Court on September 15, 2025. Pictures provided courtesy of the Indonesian Ban Asbestos Network.10 |
In 2024, the Supreme Court agreed that labelling asbestos roofing products was warranted. Even before action had been taken to implement that decision, an asbestos trade association (FICMA) issued a lawsuit claiming massive damages for its members’ future losses.
Never before have civil society campaigners anywhere in the world been taken to court for trying to protect fellow citizens from the asbestos hazard. This outrageous misuse of the legal system is a stratagem employed by powerful individuals and corporations to intimidate and silence critics; it is popularly referred to as SLAPP: strategic lawsuit against public participation.
Outraged by this antisocial and dangerous attack, groups from Asia, Latin America, Europe and Australia submitted evidence to the Court in the form of Amicus Curiae (Friends of the Court) statements. In its 5-page submission the Collegium Ramazzini, “an independent, international scientific academy,” urged the Court to:
“require all asbestos-containing products sold in Indonesia to carry health warning labels which inform industries, workers and the public that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are known causes of human cancer.”11
The Collegium advised the adjudicators to:
“be vigilant in recognising that evidence submitted by consultants to asbestos corporations is subject to a direct conflict of interest. These authors falsely claim, in contravention to abundant medical evidence, that chrysotile ‘white’ asbestos is safe, that it is rapidly cleared from the human lungs.”
According to the Collegium, the false reassurances given to the Court by FICMA are blatant lies propagated by an industry body interested in short-term profit regardless of the dire health consequences for Indonesian workers.
Attached to the document submitted to the Jakarta Court by Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA (Australia) was a list of references to studies by independent scientists, policy papers by international agencies and guidelines adopted by regional institutions supporting the need to protect humanity from exposures to chrysotile (white) asbestos. “Chrysotile asbestos is,” APHEDA’s Executive Officer Kate Lee, wrote:
“the leading cause of asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) in the world today. Chrysotile asbestos, along with other types of asbestos, are without any doubt known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis, pharyngeal cancer and ovarian cancer. Asbestos exposure accounts for nearly two-thirds of the total burden of all occupational caused cancers.”12
The evidence submitted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) on September 1, 2025, highlighted the punitive nature of the SLAPP lawsuit which was, said ACTU’s Assistant Secretary Liam O’Brien:
“a strategic tactic that has been effectively used by industry and large corporations to silence unions and public health organisations from advancing the interests of workers and the public. We are extremely concerned that this tactic is now being used by the asbestos industry to stifle necessary regulation that will protect workers and the public, and silence consumer health advocates.”13
Comments made in a September 10, 2025 Amicus Curiae by a broad-based coalition representing asbestos victims, trade unionists and environmental campaigners from Japan, Korea, Nepal, Australia, Brazil, the UK and around the world14 included a forensic examination of one of the key pieces of evidence relied upon by the asbestos trade association15 (FICMA alleged that the failure to list chrysotile asbestos on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention substantiated industry propaganda that chrysotile was a “harmless” mineral).
The coalition’s analysis of the voting record for the ten occasions on which listing chrysotile had been proposed revealed that from 2006-2025, a mere handful of nations (between 3-7% of the delegations present) had been able to exploit the Convention’s requirement for unanimous agreement to forestall the introduction of procedures to safeguard populations from potentially life-threatening exposures to chrysotile. Concluding their letter, the signatories to the coalition’s communication wrote:
“The developments cited above provide even more evidence of the global acknowledgement that the use of all types of asbestos is unacceptable in the 21st century. We support the efforts of all the campaigners in Indonesia working to protect citizens from asbestos. Their work will not only save the lives of countless numbers of Indonesians but also save the country’s economy from huge asbestos eradication and disposal costs in years to come.”
At this point in time, the outcome of the Indonesian case remains unknown. What is certain, however, is that the decision made by the Court is a matter of utmost interest to people all over the world who stand in solidarity with those individuals and groups under attack from venal forces looking to pre-empt the day when asbestos use is prohibited, not only in Indonesia but throughout Asia. The struggle continues!
October 1, 2025
_______
1 Kazan-Allen, L. International Trade Union Conference on Asbestos. Report. February, 2008.
https://www.ibasecretariat.org/lka_vienna_08_report.php
2 Kazan-Allen, L. Global Asbestos Congress (GAC 2004). Report. February 11, 2005.
https://ibasecretariat.org/lka_gac_2004_online_report.php
3 Kazan-Allen, L. Breakthrough in Cambodia! September 11, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/lka-breakthrough-in-cambodia.php
4 ADDRI. Clinical training in Cambodia 2025. August 21 2025.
https://addri.org.au/clinical-training-in-cambodia-2025/
ADDRI. Facebook Post. August 29, 2025.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1083009170606992&id=100066937575349&rdid=sMwG1LRb9cmswPpz#
5 Joint Press Release. International Mesothelioma Nurse Development Grant. August 27, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/press-release-international-mesothelioma-nurse-development-grant.pdf
6 Eco-Health. [2025년9월14일] 한일석면세미나와 석면추방 아시아연대 [September 14, 2025. Korea–Japan Asbestos Seminar and Asian Solidarity for Asbestos Eradication]. September 15, 2025.
http://www.eco-health.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=sub09_04&wr_id=556
7 The groups supporting these activities included: the Ban Asbestos Network of Korea (BANKO), Korea Asbestos Elimination Network, Citizens’ Center for Environmental Health, the Asian Ban Asbestos Network (ABAN), the Kyushu Construction Asbestos Association, the Japan Asbestos Pneumoconiosis Lawyers’ Association, the National Asbestos Pneumoconiosis Lawyers’ Association, and the Tokyo and Saitama Construction General Workers’ Unions.
8 ibid.
9 Kazan-Allen, L. Indonesian Court Supports Consumers’ Asbestos Lawsuit. February 20, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/lka-indonesian-court-supports-consumers-asbestos-lawsuit.php
Standing Together: The Fight for Asbestos Safety in Indonesia. August, 2025.
https://fight-for-asbestos-safet-glvwqzh.gamma.site/
Central Jakarta District Court Obtains Support From International Experts To Reject Lawsuit Of Asbestos Industry Association. September 16, 2025.
https://voi.id/en/economy/515219
10 The translations of the signs held up by the protestors in Jakarta are noted below:
Pidanakan korporasi pelanggark [Prosecute violating corporations]
Keadilan untuk rakgat [Justice for the people]
Asbestos bahan beracun berbahaya [Asbestos is a dangerous toxic material]
Hentikan rembungkaman publik [Stop the public silencing]
Who + 70 negara melarang asbes [WHO + 70 countries ban asbestos]
11 Collegium Ramazzini Amicus Curiae Submission on Chrysotile Asbestos for the Indonesian Courts. September, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/collegium-ramazzini-amicus-curiae-submission-to-indonesian-govt-and-courts.pdf
12 APHEDA. Amicus Curiae Submission to the Head of the Central Jakarta District Court. September 3, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/apheda-amicus-curiae-submission-to-jakarta-central-district-court.pdf
13 Australian Council of Trade Unions. Amicus Curiae Submission on Chrysotile Asbestos for the Indonesian Courts. September 1, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/actu-amicus-curiae-submission-to-central-jakarta-district-court.pdf
14 The Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) which was one of the signatories to the joint Amicus Curiae Submission represents 12 million workers worldwide.
15 Joint Amicus Curiae Submission regarding the Rotterdam Convention’s Chrysotile Asbestos Dossier for the Indonesian Courts. September 10, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/joint-amicis-curiae-statement-sept-9-2025.pdf
