Can We Catch-Up? How the UK is falling behind on Environmental Law

The document argues that the UK is falling behind global standards in environmental law enforcement and advocates for systemic legal reforms to increase citizen access to justice and the use of strategic litigation to protect the environment.

• The UK Supreme Court ruled in ClientEarth v Defra on 29 April 2015, ordering the UK government to take "immediate action" to address air pollution after the government argued that court sanctions for noncompliance with European law were not "necessary or appropriate".
• The UK's legal costs system for environmental litigation is described as the most punitive in the EU, with recent changes to the Criminal Justice and Courts Act introducing deterrents to Judicial Review that may have a "massive chilling effect" on charities by requiring disclosure of members and funders.
• The author contrasts the UK's restrictive environment with the US system, where 'private attorney general' provisions in laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts allow citizens to enforce laws and recover all costs and fees if they win, while paying nothing if they lose.
• China has significantly advanced its environmental enforcement through the Environmental Protection Law 2015, which allows NGOs to sue polluting companies and adopts the US model of true one-way cost shifting.
• The European Union is accused of violating the Aarhus Convention by failing to provide citizens with a mechanism to sue EU institutions in court when they violate EU environmental laws.

APA

Thornton, J. (2015). Can We Catch-Up? How the UK is falling behind on Environmental Law. ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/fwjlyma0/2015-11-19-james-thornton-garner-lecture-speech-2015-ce-en.pdf

Chicago

Thornton, James. Can We Catch-Up? How the UK is falling behind on Environmental Law. ClientEarth, 2015. https://www.clientearth.org/media/fwjlyma0/2015-11-19-james-thornton-garner-lecture-speech-2015-ce-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Thornton |first1=James |title=Can We Catch-Up? How the UK is falling behind on Environmental Law |publisher=ClientEarth |date=2015 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/fwjlyma0/2015-11-19-james-thornton-garner-lecture-speech-2015-ce-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{thornton2015can, author = {Thornton, James}, title = {{Can We Catch-Up? How the UK is falling behind on Environmental Law}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2015}, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/fwjlyma0/2015-11-19-james-thornton-garner-lecture-speech-2015-ce-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }