Participation in a time of climate crisis

By Professor Chiara Armeni (Chair of Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology, Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Professor Maria Lee (Professor of Law at UCL Laws)

Leeming Park meadow and trees, part of the Tykes Water Greenway in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

10 October 2021

Publication details

Armeni, Chiara and Lee, Maria (2021) 'Participation in a time of climate crisis', Journal of Law and Society https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12320

Summary

The climate crisis puts real pressure on legal guarantees of public participation in decision making. This pressure comes from a number of directions, but we are particularly concerned with the technocratic erosion of routines of participation, in a turn to expertise rather than democracy for legitimate decision making. At the same time, populists resist the constraints imposed on their power by legal rights of participation. We argue, however, that the climate crisis, while putting pressure on participation, also reinforces its necessity, and the limitations of technocratic decision making. Politics is unavoidable, even and especially in a crisis. Law, or its silence, contributes to the context, the place, and the meaning of participation, and we study its strangely underexplored role in shaping participation on the ground.