UCL Laws student Jeremy Ogilvie-Harris wins Global Governance Institute essay competition

UCL Laws LLM student Jeremy Ogilvie-Harris was named winner of the UCL Global Governance Institute (GGI) Student Essay Competition: Joint Approaches to the Climate and Biodiversity Crises for his essay on ‘The Importance of Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making: The UK Environment Bill’.

The competition invited students to submit an essay on how we can tackle the climate and biodiversity crises and was open to postgraduate students across UCL.

The essay highlights the pitfalls of overly technical approaches to establishing ‘biodiversity net gain’ under the current version of the UK Environment Bill and the importance of equitable public participation in environmental decision making.

Commenting on his win, Jeremy said: "I want to thank my tutors and Professors at UCL for providing new perspectives on law and sharing their wealth of knowledge. I also am grateful to my family and friends who are always immensely supportive. Participation in decision-making, in general, is under pressure from many sides including limitations to legal aid, the loss of EU law which institutionalised participation and a shift to reliance on technical expertise, rather than public reason. The exclusion of the public perspective risks undermining democratic legitimacy and the accuracy of decision-making. At this critical juncture, Members of Parliament should reflect on the importance and role of inclusory participation in the UK." 

Read Jeremy’s essay