UCL Centre for Law and Environment

Ray Purdy (Centre for Law and the Environment) and Olivia Woolley (formerly UCL Centre for Law and the Environment, now University of Groningen) were commissioned to do a short study for the Countryside Council of Wales looking at whether a proposed power station at Milford Haven was in compliance with a number of EU environmental laws. A key part of their analysis was on the cooling system used in the plant, its impacts and whether this was BAT. The European Commission have now acted following a complaint and has sent a formal notice of infringement to the UK Government in respect to this new £1bn Pembroke power station at Milford Haven. It is the first case of its kind against a power plant in Britain. The 18 violations listed in the infringement notice include concerns on assessing environmental impacts, protecting habitats, the use of nitrates and IPPC.

For further details see media stories from the BBC, ITV and Sky, 10 & 11 December 2012.

On December 12 2012 the Government launched its Triennial Review of the two key  environmental national regulators in England and Wales, the Environment Agency and Natural England.    Reviews of government agencies are carried out regularly by Government to test both the continued need for the body concerned and the effectiveness of their governance arrangements, but this is the first time there has been a combined review of both environmental bodies.

The actual review is carried out by the sponsoring department, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but the Secretary of State has appointed a six person independent Challenge Group, under the chair of Dame Deidre Hutton, chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, to provide robust challenges  to the assumptions and conclusions of the Review.  The Secretary of State has appointed Professor Richard Macrory, formerly a Board Member of the Environment Agency, to be a member of the Challenge Group.

Ray Purdy (Centre for Law and the Environment) and Denise Leung (formerly Centre for Law and the Environment, UCL Laws – now World Resources Institute) are editors of a new book released in December 2012. The 498 page volume entitled Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites: Emerging Legal Issues is published by Martinus Nijhoff / Brill (Leiden).

 Satellite technologies are rapidly improving, offering increased opportunities for monitoring laws, and using images as evidence in court. Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites analyses whether data from satellite technologies can be a legally reliable, effective evidential tool in contemporary legal systems. This unique interdisciplinary volume brings together leading experts to consider many emerging issues surrounding the use of these technologies in legal strategies. Issues examined include the evidential opportunities arising from technological developments, existing regulatory applications and operational experiences at national and international level, and admissibility in courts and tools for ensuring the integrity of evidence. It also examines privacy impacts under existing legislation and provides a new conceptual framework for debating the acceptability of such surveillance methods.

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On 7 November 2012 the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment  and   the KCL Dickson Poon School of Law hosted a symposium at UCL  which saw a gathering of environmental law research students for a full day of presentation, debate and discussion.

The event, co-organised by two PhD students, Emily Barritt (KCL) and Carrie Bradshaw (UCL), brought together over sixty participants, comprising postgraduate students and academics from institutions across Europe.  The Symposium provided both a much-needed platform for student speakers, as well as an opportunity for research students to meet in person, share their research and collectively develop a lively research community on a topic of such contemporary relevance and import – environmental law and governance.

In an opening address, UCL Professor of Environment Law Richard Macrory  praised the potential of such events to “provide key opportunities for the development of innovative approaches and methodologies across both research and teaching.”

Comprised of seven thematic sessions, the topics covered a truly diverse range of topics: from socio-legal and cultural perspectives on environmental law to economic analysis; emerging and interdisciplinary environmental methodologies; environmental adjudication by the ICJ and in the WTO; as well as sessions on two important environmental regulatory techniques – public participation and emissions trading.

Sessions allowed students to present for 15 minutes, followed by lively and challenging debate chaired by a number of expert academics: Professor Maria Lee (UCL), Dr Frederico Ortino (KCL), Dr Liz Fisher (University of Oxford), Professor Philippe Sands (UCL), Dr Eloise Scotford (KCL), Dr Rachael Walsh (Trinity College Dublin) and Professor Catherine Redgwell (UCL).

Summing up the event, co-organiser Carrie Bradshaw commented:

“The richness and variety of approaches adopted by the speakers exemplifies the way research students are ably grappling with the methodological challenges facing environmental law scholars today. The presentations were truly interdisciplinary, and a key theme which emerged from the day was the importance of identifying not only the research questions we ask, but the research questions which we don’t ask. The symposium has been a testimony to the high quality of research being carried out by early career academics at a range of institutions across Europe.”

The event was generously funded by UCL Centre for Law and the Environment and the UCL Graduate School. The reception was kindly sponsored by Francis Taylor Building

For further information

Martin Hession, currently chair of the UN Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board, has been appointed an Hon Senior Visiting Research Fellow to the Faculty for three years starting this month. Martin is a barrister, a former academic at Imperial College, and has been a senior official at Department of Energy and Climate Change for a number of years involved in climate change policy at EU and international level.

Professor Richard Macrory, co-director of the Centre, said, “I am delighted that Martin who has a such a wealth of recent experience in climate change policy and legal issues wishes to be associated with the Centre and the Law Faculty. We look forward to opportunities for collaboration over the next few years.”

Professor Catherine Redgwell has been awarded £143,708 as a co-investigator in a £1.3m two year research project on Climate Geoengineering Governance (CGG) funded by the ESRC and AHRC.

The project will be led from the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford, and will also involve the Institute for Science and Ethics at Oxford together with the Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex and UCL Faculty of Laws. The work will be grouped around three sets of understandings required to inform decisions on geoengineering governance: framings of geoengineering;  dilemmas of control of geoengineering technologies; and choosing governance and regulatory requirements.

For more information:
Catherine Redgwell