Richard Broadbent

This Practice Note looks at the evolution of biodiversity law, its background and the key concepts including scientific uncertainty, mitigation hierarchy and favourable conservation status. It is designed to provide practitioners with the context and conceptual tools they will need when dealing with biodiversity law

This Practice Note provides an overview of key international law and international conventions in the area of biodiversity. In particular it covers the Bern Convention and the 1992 Convention on Biodiversity, Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15, and the Aarhus Convention on access to justice. It is part of a suite of content designed to provide practitioners with the context and conceptual tools they will need when dealing with biodiversity law.

This Practice Note forms part of a suite of content designed to provide practitioners with the context and conceptual tools they will need when dealing with biodiversity law. It focusses on the role of the courts in the development of biodiversity law, and provides examples of biodiversity litigation. It looks at the application of standard public law principles, the margin of appreciation in cases involving scientific, technical and predictive assessments, the weight given to the advice of an expert national agency, the Aarhus Convention and relevant cost caps, and the role of the Office for Environmental Protection in relation to breaches of environmental law and the monitoring of public bodies.

This Practice Note looks at UK biodiversity policy and legislative framework including the 25 YEP, the Environment Act 2021, powers to amend the habitats regulations and other UK biodiversity reports including the Dasgupta Review, 30by30 Pledge, the England Trees Action Plan and the England Peat Action Plan. It forms part of a suite of content on biodiversity and wildlife.

This Practice Note pulls out the key environmental provisions in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), agreed on 24 December 2020. This includes looking at provisions on climate change and neutrality, level playing field, non-regresssion, energy, sustainable development, allocation of environmental enforcement resources, carbon pricing, cross border pollution, multilateral environmental governance, renewable energy, biological diversity, conserving and sustainably managing marine biological resources, the importance of responsible management of supply chains through responsible business conduct and corporate social responsibility practices, sustainable forest management and fisheries. It provides links to further content on the TCA more generally, as well as scrutiny of the environmental provisions. It also provides some further commentary on non-regression, and details of the bespoke dispute procedure.