The Environment: Modernising Justice?

Abstract

In this article I review what has happened in environmental litigation in the Britain over the last ten years as a part of determining the extent to which the litigation process has played a part in protecting the environment. I consider a number of the key cases in the 1990s and the decisions made by the Courts. My conclusions are that the Courts have dramatically failed to protect the interests of the individual; that they have put before the individual claimant or applicant enormous hurdles that are almost insuperable; and that combined with the steadily reducing level of funding in these claims the prospect of these types of claim ever succeeding has to be seriously put into question at what damage not only to the environment but also to the British sense of fairness?