UK Government judged to be failing British people on access to environmental justice.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) today announces, in a joint action with environmental lawyers ClientEarth, that it has won a ‘David & Goliath’ legal battle against the UK Government at the United Nations (UN). In a landmark ruling, the UN has judged the UK Government to have failed in its commitments to the Aarhus Convention – an international agreement – thereby denying ordinary British citizens fair access to the courts in cases about the environment.
MCS and ClientEarth confronted the UK Government at the United Nations in Geneva in September 2009 after MCS failed to hold Government regulators and the Port of Tyne Authority accountable for dumping 66,000 tonnes of highly toxic dredge material into the sea near Sunderland. Because the Government had failed to properly implement the UN’s Aarhus Convention, MCS could not challenge this dumping operation in court without risking financial ruin. The case brought before the UN alleged this situation to be a breach of the Aarhus Convention in the UK.
Thomas Bell, MCS’ Campaigns Strategist, said: ‘The current legal system in England and Wales makes it almost impossible for individuals or small organisations like ours to take environment cases to court without inviting financial ruin if we lose. In effect, justice on environmental matters is only available if you’re rich. We decided to challenge this legal situation by taking the twin ‘Goliaths’ of our Government and the European Union to the United Nations and standing up for the rights that ordinary people have under the UN’s Aarhus Convention. Today, ‘David’, that is to say ordinary British citizens, won.”
The decision by UN’s Aarhus Committee should herald a fundamental change to the legal system in England and Wales. Individuals and green organisations will now be able to mount environmental court cases without fear of the financial cost, and the Government will have to introduce a clear, transparent and consistent framework to implement the Aarhus Convention, allowing rich and poor alike proper access to justice in the environment.
