Over 100 people attended a packed  conference held in London on December 1 at Mishcon de Reya LLP, and hosted by UK Environmental Law Association, Planning & Environment Bar Association, and Constitutional & Administrative Law Bar Association. The focus of the event was on the potential role of national courts in climate change issues.   Any agreement that results from the current Paris negotiations on climate change will centre on bottom up national reductions plans (termed by the UN as  ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’), and this suggests that national courts may play a stronger role in the future in ensuring their effective implementation.  Speakers included Tom Burke, Visiting Professor, UCL; Sarah Kohl (Department of Energy and Climate Change); Professor Richard Macrory, Centre for Law and the Environment, UCL; and Lord Carnwath, Supreme Court, with James Maurici QC chairing.    Professor Macrory considered the UK Climate Change Act 2008 and the extent to which its provisions could be justiciable in the courts. 

After three highly successful events, the fourth Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium jointly organised by University College London (UCL) Faculty of Laws and King’s College London (KCL) Dickson Poon School of Law will be held on 25 February 2016 at King’s College London.

Announcement and call for papers.

The intensification of environmental crisis and the shifting terrain of global governance provided a context of flux for the convening of environmental law academics, researchers and students in Bloomsbury on 18 February for the 3^rd University College London-King’s College London Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium. Hosted by the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment, the Symposium was an opportunity for PhD and masters researchers to present their work on a wide range of environmental law topics.

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On Thursday 1st May the UCL-KCL Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium was held. It was organised by three postgraduate students: Emily Barritt (KCL), Kim Bouwer (UCL) and Larissa Boratti (UCL), and this year was hosted by KCL. The day gave postgraduate students and researchers from both the UK and abroad the opportunity to meet and share ideas with their peers. Support for the day was provided by KCL’s Dickson Poon School of Law, UCL’s Faculty of Laws, the Centre for Law and the Environment and the Institute of Sustainable Resources.

The presentations covered a number of contemporary issues in environmental law and policy under the headings of Environmental Governance, International Environmental Law, Sustainable Resources, Climate Change and Energy, Rights and Participation and EU Environmental Law. The range of topics covered illustrated the points made by Professor Maria Lee from UCL in her introduction to the symposium: environmental law is an inherently pluralistic discipline and its boundaries cannot be comprehensively defined.

See here for summaries of the presentations given during the day: UCL-KCL Conference 2014 – Programme.

On Friday 11 April 2014, the Public Interest Environmental Law (PIEL) UK 8^th Annual Conference was held at Cass Business School, City University London. This year’s event was organised by a committee of environmental law students from UCL, SOAS, City University London and Birkbeck, and drew around 150 attendees including academics, practitioners, NGO representatives and students. It was also generously supported by UCL, City University London, LSE, Hausfeld & Co LLP, Green Dragons, and Friends of the Earth.

With the overarching theme as “Corporations’ Role in the Environmental Crisis: Problem or Solution?” the day was crammed full of enthusiasm from our Chair, Professor William Howarth (Kent Law School), speakers and attendees to engage with the question and its many facets.

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On the 6th of March 2014, King’s College, in collaboration with UCL, organised a conference on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) (see our previous post for more details and a short summary of the event). The Conference Report, including the day’s programme and a list of delegates, is now available and can be downloaded from the following link: CCS Conference Report (KCL & UCL). For copies of speakers’ presentations and more information on events at King’s College in general, please click here.

On the 6th of March 2014, King’s College, in collaboration with UCL, organised a conference on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), held in Senate House (London).

With contributions from government, industry and academia, discussions were lively, informed,  and encouraged  a sense of urgency to get CCS on track. Speakers included the Government Chief Scientist, Sir Mark Walport, Dan Byles MP, Prof. Stuart Haszeldine of University of Edinburgh, Ward Goldthorpe (Crown Estate) , David Kennedy (Climate Change Committee) Ashley Ibbett (Department of Energy and Climate Change), Ian Havercroft (Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute) and many others. (more…)

On Friday 15^th March, the 7^th Annual Public Interest Environmental Law (PIEL) UK Conference was held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in Russell Square. PIEL UK comprises a committee made up entirely of students from universities around the UK. This year, students from a wide range of universities took part including UCL, SOAS, City Law School, BPP, Southampton and Sussex took part.

• Key note address by Professor Surya Subedi, University of Leeds

The subject of this year’s conference centred on the highly topical and emotive issue of land grabbing, and was titled ‘Development or Land Grabbing? Legal Challenges of the Global Land Rush.’ Speakers included some of the leading players in the fields of development, foreign direct investment, land grabbing and agrarian justice, providing diverse perspectives on how to approach the regulation of land acquisition going forward. There were also breakout workshops in the afternoon delivered on some more specific issues, such as REDD+ in the context of land grabs, the role of indigenous knowledge, and the inter-connectedness of global trade.

This year’s committee aimed to make the conference as sustainable as practically possible. All food was organic and locally made, with leftovers donated to a local homeless shelter; all waste was recycled; the conference was largely paper free with guests encouraged not to print tickets and programs not handed out. The whole event was also broadcast live on the Internet and a recording of all sessions can now be found on YouTube.

Sponsors for this year’s conference were: University College London, City Law School, London School of Economics, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Queen Mary University and Harrison Grant Solicitors.

Tom Cripps

Sustainability Officer/Committee Member

PIEL UK 2013

On 19th February, City law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer organized  a supper for UCL LLM students studying environmental and energy courses.  The event was hosted by partners Andrew Austin and Paul Bowden, with short presentations from a number of younger environmental  lawyers on what life in a city environmental law practice was like.  Stephen Tromans QC, one of the UK’s leading environmental law barristers, gave a fascinating presentation tracing the main developments in UK environmental law from the time he was a student to his current position.

The Symposium is jointly-organised by University College London Centre for Law and the Environment and King’s College London Dickson Poon School of Law, and seeks to provide environmental law and governance research students the opportunity to meet, present and discuss their work in a supportive environment.

Register online | Download the conference programme