Two members of the Centre who practice at the Bar have been ranked under environmental law in the latest edition of Chambers Guide.

Professor Philippe Sands QC (Matrix Chambers) is described as :

An expert in public international law. He regularly represents states in the ICJ, and a number of his cases have an environmental angle to them.
Expertise: “In an international tribunal he will know all of the judges – he is a world leader in his field.”

Professor Richard Macrory Hon QC (Brick Court Chambers) is described as :

An experienced barrister who combines his practice with a role as a professor of environmental law at University College London. He has acted in cases in the Court of Appeal and House of Lords.
Expertise: “He has a wealth of academic expertise that proves to be invaluable when you instruct him.”

Richard Macrory, director of the UCL carbon capture Legal Programme, spoke at GHGT-12 in Austin Texas on October 6. More than 1200 experts from all round the world attend the conference which is held every two years under the auspices of the Internal Energy Agency.

Richard Macrory and Ian Havercroft (Global carbon Carbon Storage Institute, and Hon Senior Research Associate, UCL) presented their new report on legal liability issues relating to carbon capture and storage.

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/legal-liability-and-carbon-capture-and-storage-comparative-perspective

An updated edition of Richard Macrory’s most influential writings was published by Hart Publishing in October. Regulation, Enforcement and Governance includes new articles on the Climate Change Act, regulatory sanctions, the Environmental Tribunal, and analyses of recent environmental law cases.

The first edition was well-received – “..an extremely important and valuable edition to the environmental lawyer’s bookshelf’ (Journal of Environmental Law), “..It should be essential reading for anyone concerned with institutional reform, transparency and accountability in the UK and EU’ (Cambridge Law Journal)

The Global Carbon Capture Institute and the UCL Carbon Capture Legal Programme have published a new report examining legal liability issues connected with carbon capture and storage.

Legal Liability and Carbon Capture and Storage authored by Ian havercroft (GCCSI) and Professor Richard Macrory (UCL) argues that legal liability issues remain critically important for the commercial development of carbon capture and storage. A well-characterised legal and regulatory regime should perform a number of functions – it can clarify operators’ potential liabilities, promote high standards, and help to encourage investment; and can raise public confidence in the technology.

The report focuses on three jurisdictions with a well developed legal regime and governments broadly supportive of CCS (Alberta, Canada; Victoria, Australia, and the United Kingdom within the European Union), and explores the legal principles and issues relevant to civil (tort) liability, liability under emissions trading regimes, and administrative liability. and liability for emissions trading.

The report notes that each regime contains provisions concerning the transfer of liabilities to the state following cessation of storage activities, but The three regimes offer quite contrasting approaches when considering the criteria necessary for effecting a transfer; including the necessary time-limits post-cessation of operations before a transfer may take place, and the actual responsibilities and liabilities that may be transferred.

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications

Working in partnership with the Global Legislators Organisation, GLOBE International, UCL has published a major review of national laws and policies in 21 countries concerning natural capital accounting. The study featured contributions from 56 individuals, including parliamentarians, government officials, external consultants, and subject matter experts from UCL.

The study was officially launched on 7 June 2014 at the 2nd World Summit of Legislators, hosted by the Mexican Congress of the Union in Mexico City. More than 500 presidents, speakers and senior legislators from around the world attended the Summit. One of the study’s lead authors Dr Ben Milligan highlighted the study’s objectives and key conclusions in an address to the Summit’s plenary session.

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Centre member Maria Lee has published EU Environmental Law, Governance and Decision-Making with Hart Publishing.

A vast and diverse body of EU law addresses an enormous range of environmental matters. This book examines a number of areas of substantive EU environmental law, focusing on the striking preoccupation of EU environmental law with the structure of decision-making. It highlights the observation that environmental protection and environmental decision-making depend intimately both on detailed, specialised information about the physical state of the world, and on political judgments about values and priorities. It also explores the elaborate mechanisms that attempt to bring these distinctive decision-making resources into EU environmental law in areas including industrial pollution, chemicals regulation, environmental assessment and climate change.

Ben Milligan’s paper, entitled ‘Planning for offshore CO₂ storage: Law and policy in the United Kingdom’ is now available online in Volume 48 of Marine Policy.

‘Offshore CO₂ storage’ refers to the injection of liquefied CO₂ into deep geological formations beneath the seabed (e.g. depleted oil and gas reservoirs, and saline aquifers) for the purpose of storing it there on a permanent basis. The storage in this manner of captured CO₂ emissions from industrial installations and power plants has attracted considerable scientific and technical interest as a potential mitigation response to climate change. A key issue facing policymakers in several countries is how to reconcile policy commitments to develop offshore CO₂ storage with other competing – and potentially conflicting – uses of the marine environment. With a view to informing policy responses to this issue, Ben’s paper presents a case study of legal and policy frameworks concerning offshore CO₂ storage in United Kingdom. The paper maps key design features of the United Kingdom׳s framework for marine permitting and planning, appraising the extent to which they enable orderly development of offshore CO₂ storage in a manner consistent with relevant high-level policy objectives.

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.

The UCL Carbon Capture Storage Programme today published a report on the implementation of the EU CCS Directive in Poland. Jerzy Jendroska, one of Poland’s leading contemporary environmental lawyers, was commissioned by the Programme to write the report.

Transposition of the Directive was a lengthy process, with the final national legislation agreed in September 2013, over two years after the Directive’s deadline for transposition. The delay was largely due to the challenges of creating a workable and clear legal framework within existing complex mining and energy legislation.

To read the full report, please click on on the following link: J. Jendroska – Implementation of the CCS Directive in Poland

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Four UCL academics have recently published on ‘UK citizen views on Carbon Capture and Storage’ in Energy Policy.

Simon Lock, Melanie Smallman, Maria Lee (of the CLE) and Yvonne Rydin, ‘”Nuclear energy sounded wonderful 40 years ago”: UK citizen views on CCS’ (2014) 66 Energy Policy 428, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513011312