Centre for Law and the Environment

Apr 2012

Cape Town and Climate Change

Apr 2012

Research Council judges UCL Research Project on Satellites and Environmental Law as 'Outstanding'

The project, with collaboration from the Dept of Geography, explored the potential and significance of employing satellite monitoring data as a compliance tool, in the context of current step changes in resolution capabilities, geographical coverage, and costs of the technology. The AHRC Assessment commented that the research was clearly valuable, with high impact, and was very complimentary about the degree of "very significant" collaborations and interaction, both formal and informal, that had been carried out during the research. It concluded that the project was "excellent value for money".

Details of the project and its conclusions can be found on:
Centre for Law and the Environment website
Other UCL Laws Research Projects

Mar 2012

Students Hold Conference on Alternative Environmental Government

LLM Students at UCL and other universities held a highly successful one-day conference on 16 March at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies entitled ‘Alternative Environmental Government’. Key speakers at the 2012 PIEL Conference included Nicholas de Sadeleer from Université Catholique de Louvain, Emma Dickson from Blackstone Chambers, Paul Horsman from Greenpeace and Polly Higgins, barrister. The day was rounded off with a debate on the need for a new International Court of the Environment chaired by Stephen Hockman QC.

Public Interest Environmental Law (PIEL) is now in its sixth year and completely student run. The Conference has built up a strong reputation for excellence in bringing legal practitioners, academics and related professionals together with students to discuss and debate pertinent issues relating to environmental law.

Feb 2012

Satellite Enforcement of Environment Law

Ray Purdy, Senior Research Fellow at UCL Laws, was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and his comments quoted in an article on the front page of the BBC's News website. The article 'Spying on Europe’s farms with satellites and drones' examines the use of these new technologies within the EU to detect fraud for environmental and farming subsidies. The article covers some of the results of Ray's research under his grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

For further information:
BBC article (published 8 Feb 2012)
Ray Purdy's research on satellites

Jan 2012

Joanne Scott Awarded Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship

Joanne Scott, Professor of European Law, has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship for 24 months, effective 1 Sept 2012. These awards enable well-established and distinguished researchers in the disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences to devote themselves to a single research project of outstanding originality and significance, capable of completion within two or three years; and are particularly aimed at those who are or have been prevented by routine duties from completing a programme of original research. Her project details are as follows:

The Global Reach of EU Climate Change Law: A Game-Changing Strategy?
The European Union (EU) has placed itself at the heart of the drive to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. It not only pursues this aim internally but also externally through the 'global reach' of its climate change law. It is this extra-territorial ambition of EU law that forms the heart of this research. Joanne Scott argues that the EU is pursuing an innovative strategy that she calls 'contingent unilateralism'. Her project assesses the legality, equity and effectiveness of this strategy and argues that a new mode of global leadership is emerging that challenges both unilateralist and multilateralist interpretations of global governance.

For more information:
Joanne Scott

European Environmental Law Workshop

Professor Richard Macrory was the UK participant at a workshop on EU environmental law organized by the Avosetta Group and held at the National Institute for Public Administration (INAP) in Madrid. Environmental lawyers from most EU Member States attended to discuss how in practice national courts handled conflicts between national and EU environmental law using doctrines such as direct effect and sympathetic interpretation. A book on the subject is now planned as a result of the meeting snd will be edited by Prof Jan Jans (Gronijen University) Richard Macrory, and Angel Moreno (Director INAP)

The Avosetta Group is a small informal group of lawyers whose main purpose is to further the development of environmental law in the European Union and Member States. Professor Macrory is a Trustee of the Group.

Nov 2011

Going low carbon: governing climate change technologies

On 23 November, The Centre for Law and the Environment and UCL Public Policy held an event exploring the governance of the technologies in moving to a low carbon economy. Chiara Armeni and Maria Lee from the Faculty of Laws spoke at the event, chaired by Yvonne Rydin (UCL Bartlett and Environment Institute), along with UCL colleagues Simon Lock (Science and Technology Studies) and Tadj Oreszczyn (Energy Institute).

Technological innovation is expected to play a significant role in moving to a low carbon economy. Alongside the technological and scientific challenges, this presents considerable challenges of governance. The speakers and audience explored the complex governance challenges associated with capturing the carbon savings potential of technological innovation, as well as the ways in which publics might engage with climate change technologies. Any technology is embedded in its social context, and the public in their diverse roles (as citizens, consumers, members of communities) play unavoidable and important roles in the adoption, proliferation and impact of climate change technologies.

The US Environmental Court: Lessons for the UK?

November 2nd is the 21st anniversary of the Vermont Environmental Court, the only such specialist court in the United States. Thus, the timing was right for a UCL seminar the previous night organised by the UK Environmental Law Association and the Centre for Law and the Environment at which Judge Merideth Wright, the first judge at the Vermont court, gave an account of its workings to an audience of British lawyers and LLM students. 

The UCL event was chaired by Lord Justice Carnwath, Senior President of Tribunals in this country. Judge Wright's talk was especially timely because a specialist environmental tribunal is now in the process of being established in England and Wales. Its initial jurisdictions will be to hear appeals against new forms of civil penalties being introduced into environmental law, but its functions may well extend in future to cover other areas of environmental regulation such as appeals against refusal of a waste management licences.

Judge Wright's presentation was followed by a panel discussion involving Mr Justice Keith Lindblom;  Nick Warren, President General Regulatory Chamber and Professor Richard Macrory QC of UCL,  author of a recent report on strengthening the new environmental tribunal. It became increasingly clear during the seminar that, despite the very different legal systems, there were extremely valuable lessons to be learnt from the Vermont experience at a critical time in thinking about new UK institutional arrangements for handling environmental law.

Sept 2011

Carbon Capture and Storage: Emerging Legal and Regulatory Issues

An important new book, edited by Ian Havercoft (formerly Senior Research fellow with UCL's Carbon Capture Legal Programme and now with the Global CCS Institute), UCL Laws Professor Richard Macrory (Director, UCL CCLP) and Professor Richard Stewart of NYU, has just been published. Carbon Capture and Storage: Emerging Legal and Regulatory Issues brings together some of the world's leading practitioners and scholars working in the field of carbon capture law and regulation to provide a critical assessment of progress to date and challenges on the horizon. The book is “essential reading for lawyers, policy-makers, and decision-makers in industry involved in climate change policy and law.” 

Jan 2011

Consistency and Effectiveness: Strengthening the New Environment Tribunal

More than 50 government lawyers attended the 25 January launch of Professor Richard Macrory’s new report on environmental tribunals. The report was commissioned by Lord Justice Carnwath, Senior President of Tribunals, who chaired the event.

Consistency and Effectiveness examined over fifty examples of appeals provisions in contemporary British environmental legislation, and found a complete lack of coherence — appeals concerning licences or the service of enforcement notices went to a wide range of different bodies including magistrates courts, the planning inspectorate, and the Secretary of State. Often there was no right of appeal.

Professor Macrory argues that it would be far more effective if most of these appeals went to the new Environment Tribunal set up in 2010, to determine appeals against civil penalties now available to environmental regulators. The report identifies a set of priorities for transfer.

The proposals are entirely consistent with the current regulatory reform agenda. Professor Macrory noted, “Over the years we have developed a system of environmental appeals which is complex and confusing. There is now a unique opportunity to make the current structure more coherent, simple and effective.”

For more information:
View this report
Richard Macrory

Lyster’s International Wildlife Law published in second edition

Professor Catherine Redgwell’s book, Lyster’s International Wildlife Law, co-authored with Michael Bowman (University of Nottingham) and Peter Davies (University of Nottingham), has been published in second edition. The development of international wildlife law has been one of the most significant exercises in international law-making during the last fifty years. This second edition coincides with both the UN Year of Biological Diversity and the 25th anniversary of Simon Lyster’s first edition.

The risk of wildlife depletion and species extinction has become even greater since the 1980s. This new edition provides a clear and authoritative analysis of the key treaties which regulate the conservation of wildlife and habitat protection, and of the mechanisms available to make them work. The original text has also been significantly expanded to include analysis of the philosophical and welfare considerations underpinning wildlife protection, the cross-cutting themes of wildlife and trade, and the impact of climate change and other anthropogenic interferences with species and habitat.Lyster’s International Wildlife Law is an indispensable reference work for scholars, practitioners and policy-makers alike.

For further details please see the Cambridge University Press website.

Read more about:
Catherine Redgwell

Nov 2010

Ray Purdy publishes ESRC Report on Satellite Monitoring of Environmental Laws

The study, Smart Enforcement in Environmental Legal Systems: A Socio-Legal Analysis of Regulatory Satellite Monitoring in Australia, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), during 2009 and 2010. The final report was launched on the 9 November 2010.

The report examines whether modern satellite technologies could provide a rigorous, legally reliable, and cost effective tool in inspection and compliance regimes in environmental regulatory systems. It considers these issues in the context of relevant experience and expertise in Australia, which is the only sustained comparative example where satellites have been used to monitor an environmental law. Satellite monitoring is used to monitor compliance with vegetation clearing legislation in Australia. The report seeks to demonstrate lessons learnt from this cutting-edge practice in Australia and to identify how best to build on this experience if satellite monitoring is to be used in new regulatory strategies.

Satellite Monitoring of Environmental Laws. Lessons to be learnt from Australia

Author: Ray Purdy
ISBN: 978-0-9560806-1-5
London: Centre for Law and the Environmental, University College London
November 2010

Angel-Manuel Moreno visits the Centre for Law and the Environment

Dr Angel-Manuel Moreno will be visiting the Centre for Law and the Environment over the next few months. Dr. Moreno works as a Professor of Public Law at Carlos III University of Madrid, where he teaches Administrative and Environmental Law, both at the domestic and at the EU level, fields in which he has published several academic contributions. His present research focuses on the EU regulation on chemicals and on the legal framework for environmental liability in a comparative perspective.

Neil Gunningham visits the Centre for Law and the Environment

Dr Neil Gunningham of the Australian National University will be visiting the Centre for Law and the Environment over the next few weeks. Dr Gunningham is the Director of the National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research in Canberra Australia. His research has included work on the application of innovative, private sector mechanisms for improving health, safety and environmental regulation with particular reference to the mining industry, he has also been invovled in work on the dynamics of climate change negotiations.

Mar 2010

Carbon Capture and Storage Legal Programme at New York University

On the 15-16 March the Carbon Capture Legal Programme, in association with New York University School of Law and sponsored by the the Global CCS Institute, held a Global Symposium on CCS at New York University. Professor Richard Macrory, Director of the CCLP, and Professor Richard Stewart from NYU School of Law, Guarini Center on Environmental and Land Use Law, discuss the legal and policy issues raised by the event on a podcast recorded by New York University. The podcast can be accessed at this link:

Richard Stewart and Richard Macrory discuss the Global Legal Symposium on CCS

Turning Research into Law

Professor Richard Macrory describes the process by which his review of regulatory sanctions became law - and in the process gave rise to the "Macrory Principles" - in an article on the main UCL website.

The article can be accessed thought this link.