Author: Michael Nicholson

For a few years after the referendum vote to leave the European Union in 2016, there was considerable uncertainty as to what the new, post-Brexit environmental governance framework might look like. After all, the UK was leaving behind decades of established collective law and policy making with partners within the EU. What would, for example, new structures for oversight of environmental law look like, and how would any tensions arising between the UK’s four nations operate and be managed effectively? How would environmental principles be embedded into post-Brexit law making and would environmental rights be protected?

Ten years later, the defining ‘bones’ of this governance framework have now been put in place and there is much to cheer about, as well as clear signs that more hard work is required. These multi-layered changes have taken place at varying speeds since Brexit, both at the UK and devolved administration level and are layered on top of other more established systems and processes such as that set up by the Climate Change Act 2008 and the devolution of significant powers from central government in the late 1990s.

This report provides an outline of these changes and a view on the utility and overall effectiveness of several distinct aspects of the post-Brexit environmental governance framework.

You can download the full report below.

This report was commissioned by the EU Delegation to the UK.

Photo by John-Mark Strange on Unsplash