On 26 October Professor Maria Lee, director of the Centre, and Professor Macrory were invited to give evidence to the House of Laws EU Sub-committee on Energy and the Environment. together with Professor Andrew Jordan of the University of East Anglia. The sub-committee is holding a short inquiry  exploring the future of environment and climate change policy following the vote to leave the European Union.  The session explored a broad range of issues including the Great Repeal Bill, the possible implications on UK environmental law depending on different models of exit, enforcement issues, and the future role of international environmental law within the UK.   A video of the session can be found at http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/9bf1e256-4143-4ec6-b8f9-05fadf1f54e1

All the written evidence and transcripts  of the oral evidence is now published : Brexit-Environment-Climate-Change-Written-Oral-Evidence-Volume 2

Professor Macrory was asked to provide a supplementary note on the challenges of ensuring a ‘roll-over’ of EU environmental legislation once EU laws no longer has independent legal force in the UK  :  House of Lords Macrory supplementary note 2

UCL’s Centre for Law and Environment was established to provide a focal point for the Faculty’s outstanding expertise and academic strength in the field of the environment and the law. The main goals of the Centre are to advance research and teaching and explore the role of law in meeting contemporary environmental and energy challenges. Have a look at what we’ve been doing over the past year and download our Briefing document.

Professor Macrory was key note speaker at a meeting organized in Brussels by the European Environmental Advisory Councils on 17 June to discuss the legal implications of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The EEAC is a grouping of official environmental advisory bodies across the EU, and includes the UK Climate Change Committee.

Although the Paris agreement has been characterized as a commitment of effort by parties rather than  Kyoto style legally binding emission reductions , Professor Macrory’s analysis  demonstrated there were many legal obligations encased in the agreement. He went on to argue that the ambitious overall goals of the agreement were likely to influence the development of climate change law and litigation at national level.

Professor Macrory’s power point :  Macrory Paris agreement

Established in 2007, Public Interest Environmental Law (PIEL) UK is a not-for-profit organisation which organises an annual conference on a burning topic in Environmental Law. The event is realised entirely through the sponsorship of a number of organisations, including the Centre for Law and the Environment.

Composed entirely of students from London Universities, the 2014-2015 PIEL UK Organising Committee laboured for several months to put together a programme of 16 speakers – academics, lawyers, activists and politicians – in one affordable Conference open to the public: ‘Satisfying Consumption: Trade and the Environment’. On April 9 PIEL UK’s 9th Annual Conference attracted over 100 attendees of all ages and walks of life. Read more

In the new academic year, PIEL UK will be recruiting for a Committee to organise the milestone 10th annual Conference. Please subscribe to our Twitter (@Piel_uk), Facebook and LinkedIn groups to stay informed; you can also register your interest by emailing pieluk@gmail.com.

A picture from our happy final class on climate change – now it’s on to revision and essay writing.

See more on our LLM – https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/law-environment/teaching-courses/

The Centre for Law and the Environment is delighted to announce the appointment of Chiara Armeni as co-director. Chiara joined the faculty in 2009, and is a research associate at both the Faculty of Laws and the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. She has wide research interests, focusing on the governance of climate change technologies and the role of precaution and participation in the mitigation of climate change. Her current research includes mechanisms for public participation in decision-making on wind energy infrastructure, and governance of geoengineering technologies.

Chiara joins Maria Lee, who has been co-director of the Centre since 2009. She replaces Richard Macrory, who has given 14 years service to developing the Centre as a focal point for the Faculty’s strength in law and governance of environmental protection, and will step down as a co-director at the end February. The Faculty is hosting a conference to celebrate Richard’s outstanding contribution to environmental law on 30 and 31 March.

This Symposium aims to provide environmental law and governance research students the opportunity to meet, present and discuss their work in a supportive environment. The sessions will be chaired by academics from UCL, KCL and beyond, all of whom are experts in the area. The Symposium is made possible by generous funding from the Dickson Poon School of Law, the UCL Faculty of Laws and the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment

More detail and registration at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/iii-ucl-kcl-postgraduate-environmental-law-symposium-tickets-14749372771

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
The third Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium jointly organised by University College London (UCL) and King’s College London (KCL) Dickson Poon School of Law will be held on 18 February 2015 at the UCL Faculty of Laws.
The symposium provides postgraduate students working in the area of Environmental Law and Governance with the chance to meet and present their work in a supportive, subject-specific forum. The symposium will provide the opportunity for up to eighteen research students to present on any aspect of their research.
The symposium organisers are keen for the event to allow students to meet and network, while strengthening a postgraduate environmental law research community and promoting the establishment of reading groups. We actively encourage attendance from research students at all stages of their postgraduate work. We also invite LLM students, academics and undergraduates interested in environmental law to come along. Lunch and refreshments will be provided by UCL Centre for Law and the Environment and UCL Faculty of Laws during the day. A drinks reception, sponsored by the Dickson Poon School of Law, will follow in the evening.
Those interested in presenting a paper in any area of Environmental Law and Governance are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 200 words by Friday 24 October 2014. The authors of abstracts selected for presentation will not be expected to submit completed papers but they may do so if they wish.
Details about attending and registering for the symposium will be provided in due course.
Venue:
UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House
Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG
For further information, please contact:
Olivia Hamlyn, PhD Candidate, UCL Faculty of Laws, (olivia.hamlyn.09@ucl.ac.uk )
Ioanna Hadjiyianni, PhD Candidate, KCL Dickson Poon School of Law (ioanna.hadjiyianni@kcl.ac.uk).

Joanne Scott, Professor of European Law at UCL Laws joined the EU’s climate change commissioner Connie Hedegaard and India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh ‘in conversation’ on the theme of EU climate change policy in the lead up to the Paris conference in 2015 at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Details here: http://www.cprindia.org/seminars-conferences/5409-european-union-climate-policy-context-negotiations-2015-climate-agreement

This event was organised by the Centre for Policy Research Climate Initiative which is headed by Professors Lavanya Rajamani and Navroz Dubash

Policy and practice seminars 2014-15

 Policy seminars are held on Thursday lunch time, 1-2 pm, SR 7. Lunch will be provided , but you must sign up at doodle. These seminars are primarily for current environmental law students – anyone else who would like to attend, please email maria.lee@ucl.ac.uk

 13 Nov           Halina Ward, Future Programmes Manager, Bond for International Development, Title tbc

 27 Nov          Ludwig Kramer, Former senior official DG Environment, European Commission, consultant ClientEarth, EU Environmental Law and Policy – Is there a Good Story to Tell?

4 Dec Judge Meredith Wright, Vermont Environment Court 1990-2011, Why do we need Environmental Courts?

 15 Jan            Jake White, legal adviser, Friends of the Earth,  Environmental law under fire

 5 Feb              Elizabeth Hiester, Senior Lawyer, ClientEarth, Access to environmental information- a Swiss Army knife for public interest environmental lawyers

26 Feb            Kim Bouwer, UCL PhD candidate, Unsexy climate change litigation

19 March       Simon Burall, Director, Involve (http://www.involve.org.uk/), Soft vs hard accountability and the role of publics

 Note other events:

20^th Nov         UKELA’s annual Garner lecture, from Lord Chris Smith, former Chair of the Environment Agency – booking details not currently available, check the UKELA website

11^th Dec         UCL Current Legal Problems Lecture, Bettina Lange (University of Oxford) Mapping a new regulatory space: The case of managing water scarcity in the UK, details and (free) registration at Lange