All-Island

Air pollution impacts human health, delicate habitats, and water quality.  Addressing air pollution has strong co-benefits with effective climate action, biodiversity protection, and ensuring societal well-being. A robust Clean Air Strategy (CAS) for Ireland is essential to ensuring that the human right to a clean and healthy environment is upheld. It is also vital to ensuring Ireland’s compliance with national,...

Climate change has emerged as a policy priority at both global and national levels over the last twenty years. The emergence of national climate laws in many jurisdictions, and the emphasis on land use change as a vehicle for meeting the climate obligations enshrined in these laws, raises important questions about existing land law. The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland)...

This study for the UK Office of Environmental Protection (OEP) was delivered by experts from Miller Research, Environmental Justice Network Ireland, and the Institute for European Environmental Policy. It reviewed historical and current regulations, assessed nutrient management policies, and explored future scenarios. A “Divergence Register” was developed to track and categorize differences across key domains. https://www.theoep.org.uk/commissioned-research/review-divergence-environmental-regulation-northern-ireland-relating-nutrient

The island of Ireland is one single biogeographic unit. Pollution and environmental damage caused on one side of the border will impact the environment on the other side of the border. This means that breaches of environmental rights in Northern Ireland will have important transboundary implications for the human right to a healthy environment for citizens living across the whole...

In recent years Just Transition has been the subject of significant research and analysis and is increasingly enshrined in legal obligations at national and supranational level. It has been widely acknowledged that just transition policies and initiatives can deliver useful measures and on the ground action to address the social risks of industrial decarbonisation and make decarbonisation socially fair and...

This report is part of an Environmental Justice Network Ireland (EJNI) project exploring strategic litigation on the island of Ireland, funded by the European Climate Foundation. The report has been informed by deskbased research and an initial scoping exercise which involved a small, focused (Chatham House Rules1) workshop for NGOs and an event bringing together the key players in strategic...

In June 2024, the first all-island conference on costs and funding was held in Queens University Belfast. The conference, 'Demystifying the cost of environmental justice on the island of Ireland', was organised by Environmental Justice Network Ireland (EJNI), the Climate Bar Association, Public Interest Litigation Support NI (PILS), Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast Centre for...

‘Rights of nature’ (RoN) is an emerging and evolving paradigm that recognises the intrinsic rights of ecosystems and species to evolve, flourish, and regenerate. The possibility of adopting a rights of nature approach on the island of Ireland has been the subject of increasing attention, with academics, NGOs and grassroots communities exploring how a concept that has been adopted in...

The concept of ecocide is gaining traction globally, with several countries, including Member States of the European Union, adopting or considering legislation. • The EU is moving towards greater environmental corporate responsibility by revising its Environmental Crime Directive (2008/99/EC) directive to include “offences comparable to ecocide”. • Both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland have environmental laws, but neither effectively...

Almost all environmental challenges facing the island of Ireland – and there are many – will ultimately require cooperation across the border. This has been recognised at government and policy level, and explicitly in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GF/BA) where the environment is identified as a key area for cooperation.i Despite this, Northern Ireland and Ireland have developed (with some...