November 21st, 2019
Access to justice Report FOE/RSPB – Worrying decline in access to environmental justice
In 2010 ELF published a report on the barriers to access to environmental justice. The results were predictable at a time when Protective Costs Orders were still evolving and before the Aarhus Costs Rules were introduced. https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/compliance/C2008-33/correspondence/FrELF_Report2009.pdf
This October Friends of the Earth and the RSPB published a new report which can be seen as a follow up to the ELF report, following the changes to the costs rules and further changes more recently as challenged by RSPB and others. Sadly it is an unhappy picture that is evidenced here, despite the changes, an even greater lack of access to environmental justice in the UK Courts. The report notes a “worrying” reduction in success rates at trial, the report says. “Between 1999 and 2002, the likelihood of success for environmental JR was 7%, however today it is nearly half that figure,”.
https://www.endsreport.com/article/1665052/access-environmental-justice-is-failing-say-ngos
