I am delighted to have the opportunity to set the context for this important publication, which draws on the expertise in environmental law based in our Welsh universities.

It reflects the very distinctive role that Wales is playing in meeting the pressing environmental challenges that are faced by societies around the world. This role was established in law under the Government of Wales Act, which requires Welsh Ministers to set out how they propose to promote sustainable development in the exercise of their functions. It will be further strengthened by new legislation in the shape of a Sustainable Development Bill,...

Those concerned to see a coherent and effective development of environmental law (especially including policy makers and legal advisers as well as researchers, teachers and students) share a broad awareness of two critical features. First, there is the wide-ranging nature of those problems that can be viewed as ‘environmental’ in character; second, those law and policy fields with which environmental lawyers are required to engage are both multi-faceted and polycentric.

A 2009 article in theJournal of Environmental Lawby Elizabeth Fisheret al. marked a notable contribution to a maturing environmental law discourse. The authors generally posed the question...

The implementation of devolution across the UK in the late 1990s, while only one manifestation of an intense period of broader constitutional reform, perhaps represents one of its most significant expressions.¹ Indeed it is arguable that, in a system long regarded by commentators as substantially more political than legal, devolution, the one area of constitutional change motivated by popular pressure, has brought statute law more markedly to the fore than had previously been the norm in our constitutional arrangements.² The devolution legislation introduced in the UK in the late 1990s differentiated clearly between Scotland and Northern Ireland on the one...

This and the following chapter focus on the role of the common law as a means of environmental protection and the key role that certain Welsh cases played in forging the law of nuisance as it currently stands. Certain cases, drawn from two industries that have played major parts in the industrial heritage of Wales, are used as historical case studies with the intention of drawing lessons for the future.

South Wales was at the forefront of the industrial revolution; this created land use conflicts on a hitherto unknown scale. In the nineteenth century the antiquated law of public and...

As the copper-refining industry withered and eventually died out, another form of mineral refining, namely oil refining, was on the ascendancy further along the coast in Pembrokeshire.¹ However, by this stage the legal landscape had altered in that a more comprehensive system of environmental regulation had evolved. Atmospheric emissions from industrial facilities such as oil refineries were subject to the control of the Alkali Inspectorate (an anachronistic title given that the industry from which it had taken its name had largely died out by this time) and local authorities, which had statutory nuisance powers under the Public Health Acts. However,...

The legal regime for nature conservation may be about to change dramatically now that Wales has enhanced law-making powers.The Natural Environment Framework(NEF), a major review of environmental law and policy initiated in September 2010 by the then Minister for the Environment, Housing and Sustainable Development, raised the possibility of a restructuring of environmental bodies in Wales and a move towards natural resource management based on the ecosystem approach and designed to deliver ecosystem services.¹ If even some of the ideas being floated come to fruition, the result will be a different way of looking at biodiversity and the...

To claim that environmental law and environmental policy is heavily, even primarily, science based is too trite an assertion by far.¹ The influence of scientific discourse on the environmental movement is unsurprising; it was scientists who first demonstrated the now almost axiomatic link between unregulated human activity and environmental degradation.² Indeed, it has been suggested that contemporary environmental law should move away from a pluralistic notion of legitimacy to one based primarily on science.³ However, while one cannot deny the importance of science in the context of environmental law and the formulation of environmental policy, a science-led approach is not...

The Food Strategy for Wales (hereafter ‘Strategy’ or ‘Food Strategy’) was published in 2010 ‘to identify and address the issues around food (in Wales) including how best to balance the need for increased food production with the need to protect our environment for the immediate and the longer term future.’¹ The author of the present chapter was part of a team undertaking all of the research and preparatory work leading to the consultation exercise on the draft food strategy.² The team approached the work employing a range of research methods, which are referred to below, the intention being to undertake...

Sustainable development is a global challenge but it will be founded upon changes in the behaviour of all actors in society, ranging from multi-national corporations to individuals at work and in their homes. Of particular significance is ensuring environmentally sustainable behaviour among the poorest people in society, who are rarely preoccupied by global environmental problems, but for whom the quality of the local environment is a key concern. In developing countries the main consideration is ensuring that the local environment can support the basic needs of its people.¹ In developed societies there is also increasing recognition that measures to improve...

What follows seeks a distinctive Welsh legal perspective on efforts to address the challenges of climate change, under the aegis of the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act (‘the Act’). The background to the discussion sees a Welsh government operating in a devolved setting, now on track towards increased legal autonomy, and subject to an evolving duty to promote sustainable development in the exercise of its functions.¹ Yet, at the same time, a Welsh ‘voice’ jostles in a crowded governance terrain; one marked by challenges across multiple levels of authority, presenting complex and multi-faceted problems, which are often resistant to traditional...

In supermarkets and corner shops across Wales, consumers are charged at least 5 p for every carrier bag used.¹ Cross the border into England, however, and bags are given away for free with the purchase of goods. The example might seem trivial but it gives some indication of the shape of things to come, with Wales showing an increasing willingness to do things differently. In the aftermath of the referendum, in which Wales voted ‘yes’ to direct law-making powers, one might expect the disparities between policies in Wales and England to grow in both number and size. Yet, as this...