Environmental Law

The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal brought by An Taisce against the grant of permission for a major cheese factory in Slieverue, Co Kilkenny. It was argued by the appellant that the new factory would consume 450 million litres of milk per year, and that the environmental impact of this consum

Fieldfisher lawyer Gráinne O'Callaghan has been appointed as secretary and treasurer of the Irish Environmental Law Association (IELA). Established in 1993, IELA promotes enhancement and conservation of the environment, shares information on environmental law and its application, makes educat

An environmental lawyer has been fined £5,000 after being found in contempt for leaking the UK Supreme Court's judgment in a case concerning the expansion of Heathrow Airport. Tim Crosland has become the first person to ever be tried and found in contempt by the Supreme Court.

The High Court has decided to refer a point of EU law to the CJEU regarding an access to information claim brought by the information activist group Right To Know CLG (RTK) against the Taoiseach. Specifically, it was claimed that the applicant was entitled to certain greenhouse emissions information

Proposals to update regulations on accessing environmental information to bring them into line with the Aarhus Convention have gone out to consultation. The Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations are one of over 60 pieces of legislation used to implement the Aarhus Convention in

A new temporary body has been established to enforce environmental law in England and Northern Ireland following Brexit. The Interim Environmental Governance Secretariat (IEGS) has been established in response to the European Commission no longer having an environmental oversight role after the UK's

Lawsuits over inequalities that flow from environmental injustices are expected to loom large in the Irish courts, the Irish Independent reports. Harm wrought by air pollution as well as flooding, poor planning and lack of green space are likey to be the source of much litigation in the coming years

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan has launched a consultation on Ireland's implementation of the Aarhus Convention on access to environmental information and the PRTR Protocol on publicly accessible national pollutant registers. Ireland is required to submit national implementation reports to the secr

The High Court has declined to refer an environmentalist group's case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Background

The UK government has announced that it will be introducing a new "world-leading" law to clean up the UK's supply chains and protect rainforests from illegal deforestation. The proposed legislation would prohibit larger UK businesses from using products grown on land that was deforested illegally.

Ireland is in breach of the binding Aarhus Convention because of the length of appeal proceedings related to rejected Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) requests, draft findings suggest. The findings from the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC) were published following a compla

A book by the late Polly Higgins, who proposed the crime of ecocide, has been republished to celebrate her life and work. Ms Higgins, who died of cancer last year at the age of 50, grew up in Glasgow, where she attended St Aloysius’ College before studying at Aberdeen, Utrecht and Glasgow Univ

An environmental activist network has been granted an order setting aside secondary legislation which amended the regulation of large-scale peat extraction. Finding that the amended legislation was inconsistent with EU environmental law, Mr Justice Garrett Simons also found that the use of secondary

An environmental activist network has been granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the implementation of secondary legislation introduced in January 2019 pending the outcome of judicial review proceedings contending that the legislation is invalid. Stating that the transitional provisions ga

An environmental activist has been granted a declaration that the Environmental Protection Agency acted ultra vires its powers in 2017 when it granted Irish Water a technical amendment to a licence granted in 2012, which effectively allowed it to regularise ongoing breaches to the licence conditions