Richard Macrory is co-chair of the UK Environmental Law Association’s Brexit Working Party. UKELA was neutral on the Brexit referendum, but is working to ensure the UK environmental law is not jeopardized following the UK’s departure from the EU.  Former DEFRA lawyer Rosie Oliver and barrister Joe Newbigdin have been  employed by UKELA to research on environmental law issues, and the Faculty has kindly provided them with desk space over the next six months. This month the first newsletter outlining current activities has been published. Brexit newsletter 01

The House of Lords European Union Committee published  its report “Brexit: environment and climate change” on February 14.  The wide-ranging report gives a valuable overview of policy and legal challenges that will emerge over the next few years.  It notes:

“Policy stability will be critical during the process of, and in the immediate aftermath of, withdrawing from the EU to avoid the emergence of legislative gaps and avoidable uncertainties in the sphere of environmental protection. Once the UK has withdrawn from the EU, environment legislation and policy will be more vulnerable to short term and less predictable changes at a domestic level”.

Professor Maria Lee, director of the Centre, and Professor Richard Macrory gave oral evidence to the Committee at the end of last year and their views feature prominently in the report.

House of Lords Report

Brexit-Environment-Climate-Change-Written-Oral-Evidence-Volume 2

House of Lords Macrory supplementary note 2

Experts from round the world attended the annual meeting of the CSS Regulatory Network held in Paris at the end of November. The meeting, the eighth in the series organized by the International Energy Agency, provided a forum for comparing regulatory and policy developments in carbon capture and storage. Mainly for financial reasons, CCS has largely stalled in Europe, but this year’s meeting was marked by a strong presence from China, Indonesia, and Japan.

Professor Macrory chaired one of the international sessions sessions and was respondent on the session exploring liability issues. Another core participant was Ian Havercroft, formerly coordinator of the UCL Carbon Capture Legal Programme, and now based at the Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute in Australia where he is Global Lead – Legal and Regulatory.

Further details :  https://www.iea.org/workshops/8th-ccs-regulatory-network-meeting.html

Professor Macrory was a key note speaker at a conference on November 28th held in Milan on environmental enforcement and sanctions. The conference, Environmental Law Regulation: Dealing Complexity by Complexity was organized by University Bocconi. Edward Ruggeri, a former UCL LLM student, and now working as a practitioner in Milan, was one of the respondents.

In 2015, a number of UCL academics working on energy access challenges in the global South began meeting informally to discuss common research interests.  Now a team of about 16 from the UCL Energy Institute, Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE), Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR), Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), Development Planning Unit (DPU), Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Centre for Law and Environment, and other departments are meeting regularly as the “UCL Energy and Development Group”. The group is working together to build both a community of practice and to access research funds.  The team is already working on a research paper, has established a wide view of the relevant capability and capacity across UCL, and has served as a hub which has enabled several responses to large consultancy opportunities with valuable research and impact outcomes. The coordinator for the group is Dr Long-Seng To, Research Fellow at STEaPP (second from the left in the photo). Please contact her or Centre for Law and Environment member Ben Milligan to learn more or to join.

Local Publics and Offshore Wind Farms: constructing evidence in nationally significant infrastructure planning

Tuesday 11 October 2016, 18:00 – 19:00

Speaker: Professor Yvonne Rydin (UCL Barlett School of Planning)
Chair: Professor Maria Lee (UCL Laws)

About the lecture:

The regulation of offshore wind farms and other major renewable energy infrastructure provides an opportunity to examine the processes put in place by the Planning Act 2008. There has been little research on the operation of the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) regime to date and an ESRC-funded project (Rydin, Lee, Lock and Natarajan No. 164522) is currently filling this gap. The project focuses particularly on how local publics are involved and their representations constructed – or not – as evidence. In this lecture, research on the NSIPs regime, based on detailed reading of extensive documentation, supplemented with on-going interviews, focus groups and attendance at hearings, will be used to show how science and technology studies (STS) offers insights into how the voice of local publics is constructed, the way that knowledge claims are recognised as evidence, and the role that material artefacts play in the hearings and deliberations.

About the speaker:

Yvonne Rydin has been at UCL since 2006. Before that she was at the LSE in the Department of Geography and Environment for 16 years. Prior to that she taught at the University of East London (Departments of Applied Economics and Land Mangement) and De Montfort University (School of Land and Building Studies). Yvonne has a BA in Land Economy (with Economics Part 1) and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning Studies. She is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and an accredited Mediator.

Register your place:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/local-publics-and-offshore-wind-farms-registration-26756032012

Last term  Professor Jane Holder and LLB Environmental Law students attended a two-day study retreat at the Sustainability Centre, Hampshire. The outdoor learning environment encouraged reflection on valuing nature and measuring loss, together with their legal mediation. Former students now working in a range of professional settings contributed to the event.

 Professor Jane Holder has been leading our partnership with the Environmental Law Foundation established last year.  The ELF/UCL Clinic has been set up allowing the introduction of an environmental  legal practice element into the LLB programme and bringing UCL Laws  into a national network of ELF clinics located in universities.  This provides the opportunity to share expertise and best practice in clinical legal education, as well as identifying patterns of environmental injustice.

As outputs from the partnership and clinic, this year’s LLB environmental law students have:

• – researched EU environmental assessment law to support a cross-NGO complaint to the European Commission about the non-implementation of national regulations relating to farmland biodiversity.
• – embarked on advice work for users of Battersea Park in relation to decision making about planned Formula E racing events.  The areas of law include environmental assessment and Aarhus participation rights.

PIEL UK held its 10th Annual Conference on 15 April : “Climate Talks After Paris: Beyond the Pledges.” Students, academics and legal practitioners attended the all day event which was organized by LLM environmental law students at London universities including UCL.

The aim was to critically assess the future of climate negotiations and its impact on the international legal sector. The conference opened with keynote speaker Kirsty Schneeberger, who participated in the Paris negotiations as former advisor to the UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Other speakers and panellists included participants in the Paris negotiations and leading specialists in international climate law.

Professor Richard Macrory was moderator of one of the sessions, and Ned Westaway, Hon Research Associate and a founding member of PIEL provided the closing speech. Ashley Overhouse from PIEL has provided a Detailed Account.