I am delighted to have started on 1 July 2024 a 6 month contract working at the Office for Environmental Protection (‘OEP’) – www.theoep.org.uk
The European Court of Human Rights ‘ECHR’ delivered a landmark ruling on 9 April 2024 in a climate case brought by 2,000 Swiss women, mostly in their 70s
Three key components of a credible UK approach to chemicals regulation are, as at April 2024, currently missing.
On 6 February 2024, in the face of strong opposition from farmers in the EU and their trade bodies such as COPA COGECA, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the abandonment of the proposed Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation, which contained the Commission’s aim to halve pesticide use. This had been an important part of the Commission’s ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy and its Green Deal.
A new report published on 22 July 2021 outlines the scale of illegal waste activity in England. The report “An independent Study into Fly-tipping and Unregistered Waste Carriers in England” was carried out by Air & Space Evidence and EPR, and commissioned by Material Focus, the not-for-profit behind the Recycle Your Electricals campaign. I was one of a number of reviewers taken from academia, the waste industry and former Government and regulatory officials.
On 9 July 2021, Southern Water entered 51 guilty pleas to charges of making unpermitted discharges or untreated sewage along the southern coast of England. The charges covered 6,971 unpermitted discharges, some 61,704 hours or a total of 7 years worth of discharges of millions of gallons over the five years from 2010 to 2015.
On Christmas Eve, 24th December 2020, just one week before the end of the Transition Period, the EU and UK announced that they had reached an “agreement in principle” on a Trade and Cooperation Agreement. This covers tariff and quota free trade in most goods, and other aspects of cooperation on economic, social, environmental and fisheries issues.
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.
