UCL Centre for Law and Environment

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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Centre members Ben Milligan and Chiara Armeni have recently completed a paper entitled ‘Marine spatial planning for emerging marine activities: a case study of law and policy concerning offshore carbon storage in the United Kingdom’. Ben Milligan presented the paper at the 7th Conference of the Advisory Board on the Law of the Sea (Monaco, 3 – 5 October 2012), which is convened by the International Hydrographic Organisation and the International Association of Geodesy.

The paper identifies key design features of the United Kingdom’s framework for marine permitting and spatial planning, appraising the extent to which they enable orderly deployment of offshore CO2 storage technology. The paper and accompanying presentation will be published on the conference website.

See here for an overview of the Centre’s Carbon Capture Legal Programme.

The Carbon Capture Legal Programme has commissioned several ‘Think Pieces’ from those with an expertise or particular perspective on legal developments concerning CCS. The pieces aim to provide an brief insight into discrete topics with a view to provoking further discussion and research.

Additional Think Pieces will be added throughout the duration of the Programme. If you are interested in contributing a Think Piece to the site please contact one of the Centre members.

For further information about the Carbon Capture Legal Programme, click here.

Current Think Pieces:

	From EOR to E2R: Sequestering CO2 while reducing dependence on imported oil (May 2011) Philip M. Marston
	The new regime for CCS in Spain: an overview (April 2011) Angel-Manuel Moreno
	CO2 Emission Performance Standards: a submission to the UK Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change (October 2010) Richard Macrory
	Working Party Report on the arrangements needed to develop the Infrastructure for Carbon Capture and Storage in the UK (July 2010) Lord Oxburgh et al
	The Gorgon Project: legal and policy issues (March 2010) Andrew Beatty, Ilona Millar and Megan Flynn
	Legislating to quantify risk and increase the financial viability of CCS projects (March 2009) Calum Hughes
	Carbon Capture and Storage in the Clean Development Mechanism: overcoming the stalemate (September 2008) Pedro Martins Barata
	Site Exploration: Are We Developing a Sensible Regulatory Regime? (September 2008) Richard Macrory
	Current CCS regulation in Norway (April 2008) Nina K. Hallenstvedt

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.”

Professor Macrory spoke recently about the book in a two-part interview with Kristina Stefanova of the Global CCS Institute. For more information:

Global CCS blog: Richard Macrory Interview Part 1
Global CCS blog: Richard Macrory Interview Part 2
Hart Publishing website
UCL Carbon Capture Legal Programme

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

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