It was great to make a first visit to Accra and Ghana in mid April 2025 to contribute to a workshop on nuclear liability as part of the European Commission programme in support of Ghana’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, led by friends and colleagues from Vienna. I did sessions on nuclear liability, and on nuclear transport.
From 28 to 30 January 2025 the UK and the EU were in an arbitration hearing in the Hague. The hearing concerned the UK and Scottish governments’ decision to ban sandeel fishing in certain areas of the Dogger Bank
On 30 January 2025 the Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights handed down a judgement in the case of Cannavacciuolo and Others v Italy.
In the late 1990s, while undertaking a Harkness Fellowship in the USA and working on a book on ‘Making Environmental Laws Work’, I visited Silicon Valley to talk to some of the company managers there about environmental regulation and the US computer industry.
In the absence of world leaders, and with the UNFCCC climate conference at COP26 in Glasgow postponed until November 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, student climate activists decided to press ahead and hold their own online MOCK COP, which took place between 19th November and 1st December 2020. The full Declaration and Treaty can be read here.
On 14 October 2020 the European Commission adopted the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. The Commission’s proposals, which will now be debated and negotiated with EU Member States and the European Parliament, set an ambitious new agenda for chemicals regulation within the Union as part of the EU Green Deal.
On 12 October 2020 the Agriculture Bill returned to the House of Commons, which voted down the amendments added by the House of Lords. The Lords amendments would have required that food products imported into the U.K. under future trade deals meet U.K. standards. They would also have required that the new Trade and Agriculture Commission be given a statutory role in reviewing trade agreements.
On 25 November 2020 William Wilson will be speaking on "COVID-19 and Climate Change: Impacts on COP26, National Policies, Green Recovery" at the 2020 Journal of Environmental Law workshop "Environmental Law in the Time of COVID" run by Professor Liz Fisher at the University of Oxford.
We have just launched a new website and blog - www.COP26andbeyond.com aiming to provide new ideas and resources to young people in particular, so as to enhance the value of their participation.
In the first publication in its Environmental Democracy series, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) has published the report by William Wilson on ‘ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTIONS -Parliamentary Oversight of Environmental Governance and Legislation’.
