Environmental Law and Climate Justice

The Garden Court Environmental Law and Climate Justice Team exists to confront the climate emergency.

To contact the Environmental Law Clerks, please email publiclawclerks@gclaw.co.uk or phone

+44 (0)20 7993 7600

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 The Team aims to find ways to align the law and our legal values to hold governments and corporations to account while working in partnership with, and protecting, the natural world. We bring together leading experts from across our specialist practice areas, united by our ethos “do right, fear no one”, to secure social and environmental justice, through traditional and creative legal action, education and activism.

Garden Court brings unrivalled history and experience of using the law to achieve social justice, and has a distinguished track record in the field of environmental law. The Environmental Law and Climate Justice Team reflects our understanding of the ubiquitous impact of the climate emergency, cutting across every one of our broad range of specialist practice areas. This unique multi-disciplinary approach means that members of Garden Court are perfectly placed to provide representation and advice on climate and environmental justice, whether in the context of litigation or otherwise.

OUR WORK

Our work includes ground-breaking climate change litigation before international tribunals, and bringing Public Law judicial review challenges against decisions taken by public bodies to hold governments to account.  We are equally well-known for defending the right to protest and the rights of environmental protestors in both criminal and civil courts. More widely, our members bring expertise in domestic and international migration policies, international crime and conflict law, commercial and business ethics, multi-party litigation and anti-discrimination of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.

We work with individuals, groups, grassroots campaigners, high-profile charities, and NGOs acting in litigated cases and third-party interventions. We are experienced in working on cases involving alternative funding agreements and private litigation funders.

We are committed to Pro Bono work including advising on draft climate and ecology legislation and serving on environmental NGO advisory boards.

Many of our members have founded charities or volunteer with charities committed to the protection of nature, habitats, and vulnerable groups.

Members of the Team also hold Professional Pro Bono Membership with the Environmental Law Foundation, a cross-disciplinary network of professional members who each year provide a significant amount of pro bono advice & assistance to socially and economically disadvantaged communities across the UK seeking environmental justice.

Publications

Members have also contributed to books and articles as well as academic teaching on climate change, environmental issues, protest rights and critical legal theory.

FUNDING YOUR CASE

Given some of the difficulties in obtaining legal aid for these cases, we do our best to work with other funding arrangements, including ‘no win, no fee’ agreements where appropriate, fixed fees for some matters and crowdfunding.

In some cases, legal action to protect the environment is protected by the Aarhus Convention, which limits the amount a claimant would have to pay a defendant if the claim is unsuccessful. The limit is £5,000 for individual claimants and £10,000 for group claimants. The Aarhus regime also imposes a cap of £35,000 to limit the amount a successful claimant can claim from a public body.

Past Notable Cases

 

Aghaji and Garforth v Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy  (CO/1097/2022) 
Successful judicial review challenge of the government’s Net Zero Strategy. The government conceded that the NZS was unlawful in circumstances where it had failed to comply with sections 13 and 14 of the Climate Change Act 2008.

Finch v Surrey County Council and Horse Hill Developments Ltd (with Friends of the Earth Ltd intervening) (2022) PTSR 958
Appeal against the decision of Holgate J to refuse the claimant’s judicial review challenge of SCC’s decision to grant planning permission for oil production at the Horse Hill site for 25 years. The main issue in the appeal concerned the adequacy of the environmental impact assessment (“EIA”) and focused on the requirement to include within the EIA an assessment of the significant indirect effects of the development on the climate and an assessment of those GHG emissions (known as “scope 3 emissions”). Press Coverage: The Independent, Financial Times.

Thornton v Oil and Gas Authority and Third Energy UK Gas Limited (2020) EWHC 2615 (Admin)
Judicial review challenge of the decision of the Oil and Gas Authority to approve the sale by Barclays of Third Energy (a fracking company) to York Energy (a newly incorporated affiliate of a Caymans company (Alpha Energy) with no history of operating in the UK) given the risk that the purchasing company might not pay for the decommissioning costs associated with the operation.

Frackman v SSCLG and Cuadrilla [2018] EWCA Civ 9 
Challenge to the decision by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to grant Cuadrilla planning permission for fracking operations at a site in Lancashire.

Andrews v Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (2018) 
Challenge brought by the Mayor of Malton against the government’s decision to issue a written ministerial statement (WMS) requiring local authorities to ‘recognise’ the statutory definition of fracking set out in the Infrastructure Act 2015. This challenge aimed to prevent fracking operations (which use slightly less fluid than the statutory threshold) being granted planning permission in areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks, such as the North York Moors.

MCS, Richard Haward Oysters v SSEFRA 
Judicial review challenge to the government’s Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan on grounds that it fails to accord with statutory obligations, human rights and the public trust doctrine. Press Coverage: The Guardian, BBC NewsFinancial Times, iNews.

Kenyon v Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government (2020) EWCA Civ 302 
Represented a local resident who unsuccessfully challenged a decision by the Secretary of State that no environmental impact assessment was required for the proposal that 150 homes be built on a site in Hemsworth, in circumstances where the development would lead to an increase in traffic and nitrogen dioxide levels in the town centre, which had been designated as an Air Quality Management Area.

Hudson v Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and Legoland (2019) EWHC 3505 (Admin)
Judicial Review challenge on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, to the decision of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to grant Legoland planning permission for the construction of a holiday village and other works at its Legoland Windsor site. The claimant complained about the impact of the development on veteran trees within the site and the inadequacy of the proposed buffer zone between the site and the adjacent Windsor Forest and Great Park Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation, and the council’s failure to undertake an appropriate assessment. Court of Appeal upheld Lang J’s decision, although it concluded that the protective buffer zone between the site and the adjacent Windsor Forest and Great Park Site was wider than Lang J had assumed.

M4 Corridor (Relief Road) Around Newport Inquiry
Irena Sabic KC and Grace Brown were instructed in Inquiry through the Environmental Law Foundation by several organisations including the Wildlife Trust, Gwent Wildlife Trust and Campaign for Protection of Rural Wales. This concerned a scheme with an estimated cost of £1 billion; see here, which resulted in the plans of the Welsh Government to build the road being rejected.

Carolyn Brown v London Borough of Ealing and Queen’s Park Rangers [2018] EWCA Civ 556  
Challenge to Council’s decision to grant Queen’s Park Rangers planning permission to redevelop the 61-acre Warren Farm site in the Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) for mixed-use as a training facility for the football team and community open space/sports facilities. The appeal concerned the meaning of the term “very special circumstances” but also had a very important environmental angle, namely the application of the London Plan’s policies on the development of protected open spaces within the MOL.

LGT FFT and DGLG v Wolverhampton CC (FoE and Liberty intervening) 
The Supreme Court has granted Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT), London Gypsies and Travellers (LGT) and Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group (DGLG) permission to appeal the use of these wide-ranging ‘anti-Traveller’ injunctions taken out by Wolverhampton City Council and numerous other councils. Marc Willers KC is leading Tessa Buchanan and Owen Greenhall, and Stephanie Harrison KC is leading Stephen Simblet KC and Fatima Jichi.

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