Last week I was interviewed for One Planet on loopholes in environmental law. The feature is short but there are a few important points to make. Whilst non legal experts who are more concerned with political short term gains are in charge of scrutinising the quality of environmental laws we will continue to have a less than coherent body of environmental law. In the UK the House of Lords does a much better job at producing integrated legislation, but that may change with the proposed Coalition reforms. If we do not take international concerted action on issues such as climate change – never better put than by Europe’s post Kyoto campaign in Durban “Bind me but make sure it’s legal” – efforts will be piecemeal and we will achieve little. But even if we do all of those things and have the most comprehensive and highest quality of environmental laws we will get nowhere if we do not have an International Court of the Environment to enforce these laws, to get round national non-enforcement, delays of corrupt governments in pursuing environmental crime and to create an evening of the playing field that would assist competition amongst the green industry.
