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Call for Papers: Law and the Environment Conference 2018

31 Jan 2018

Towards Environmental Responsibility, Accountability and Liability.

For too long the progressive elaboration of primary rules of environmental law, setting out substantive requirements and standards of conduct, has lacked the accompanying conditions, measures and mechanisms necessary for establishing responsibility for their breach. 

However, recent developments bear witness to a diverse range of initiatives concerning Environmental Responsibility, Accountability and Liability, which suggest that the public and civil society, as well as environmental regulators and other official authorities, are focusing more on the need to deter the behaviour ultimately responsible for environmental degradation, and to mobilise the resources required to remedy such impacts.

Different aspects of this trend can be observed at the national, EU/regional, transnational and global levels.        

In order to promote better understanding of such developments, speakers are invited to propose papers / presentations exploring a range of issues related to Environmental Responsibility, Accountability and Liability, including, for example:

  • Developments relating to legal liability for environmental harm, either under common law, statutory regulatory / liability regimes, EU law or international law, including recent developments in climate litigation;
  • Legal arrangements regarding financial provision for environmental liabilities;
  • The role of various types of accountability and compliance mechanisms, including treaty compliance mechanisms such as the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC), and independent accountability mechanisms established by international financial institutions (IFIs) and a range of other actors;
  • Comparative analysis of innovative mechanisms of environmental enforcement, including penalty points systems, or schemes for “naming and shaming” of polluters;
  • The role of guiding principles of environmental law in shaping models of and mechanisms for responsibility, accountability and liability;
  • The potential role of non/quasi-legal regimes of corporate social (and environmental) responsibility (CSR) / environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. 

The aim of the Law and the Environment Conference is, as always, to be as inclusive as possible, and so proposals will be welcomed on any topic which relates, even indirectly, to this broad theme.  The organisers would, however, particularly wish to host a specialist session covering developments (locally and globally) relating to the emerging phenomenon of climate litigation.

In addition, the Conference Programme will, as usual, include the well-established specialist sessions covering contemporary developments in Marine Environmental Law, Planning Law, Corporate Environmental Law, Climate and Energy Law, and Fisheries and Aquaculture Law.

Proposals for papers / presentations should be forwarded as soon as possible to the Conference Convenor, Prof Owen McIntyre, at o.mcintyre@ucc.ie (Tel. +353-87-2861055)

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