On Tuesday 17th October, Dr. Mary Dobbs and Dr. Orla Kelleher appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action (https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/video-archive/committees/8339;https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_environment_and_climate_action/2023-10-17/2/) to discuss the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss report. Orla and Mary were invited to make a contribution on the Assembly’s recommendations regarding constitutionalising environmental rights and rights of nature, as well as establishing environmental courts at the District Court and Circuit Court levels. During the 2-hour committee meeting, a wide range of other issues covered by the Assembly’s 159 Recommendations were raised - encompassing the ambition, coherency, resourcing, structuring, implementation and enforcement of biodiversity law and policy. Once the Joint Oireachtas Committee has completed its report, it will be submitted to government for consideration.
Mary and Orla discussed the potential benefits of constitutionalising environmental rights as a complementary tool alongside the full and proper implementation of the existing regime - highlighting their value as a tool in the longer term to help ensure high environmental standards and to hold the State to account. However, they emphasised the importance of the careful design of any such referendum questions and the need for an expert group, including the need for engaging with constitutional and environmental lawyers and academics, environmental NGOs and other NGOs regarding issues such as social justice. They also flagged dangers of letting other issues like the implementation/enforcement of environmental laws already on the statute books slide, by focussing on these more transformative, long-term elements.
This engagement with the Oireachtas built upon Mary’s previous role as the legal expert on the Expert Advisory Group for the Citizen’s Assembly, as well as her research and engagement on environmental governance and law reform and Orla’s research on environmental rights. Orla has an article on constitutionalising environmental rights in press with the Irish Judicial Studies Journal entitled 'Environmental constitutionalism: a transformative legal discourse?'
Orla and Mary are currently completing a project for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol and environmental rights, along with Alison Hough BL (ATU) and Dr. Lisa Claire Whitten (QUB).