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Latest Projects
Access to Justice Observatory: Accessing Justice at EU and National Level EJNI’s Access to Justice Observatory project has the object of screening legislative developments at EU and national level for compliance with the access to justice requirements of the Aarhus Convention.
Rights and Nature: Research
Linking the Irish Environment: The aim of the ‘Linking the Irish Environment’ project is to examine how to enable the environment sector across the island of Ireland to cooperate and engage on an all-island and cross-border basis to deal with shared environmental challenges, risks, and opportunities.

Environmental Governance

Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) have almost entirely separate systems and structures of environmental governance. To date there has been only limited cooperation relating to cross-border environmental issues and localised environmental challenges are managed primarily via jurisdictionally discrete processes, despite serious concerns about the protection of the environment in both jurisdictions and significant shared environmental challenges.

The resources below offer some insights into environmental governance challenges experienced on the island of Ireland.

Academic Articles

Ciara Brennan, Mary Dobbs and Viviane Gravey, ‘Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: Environmental Governance Vulnerabilities in Post-Brexit Northern Ireland’ (2019) Environmental Law Review 21(2) 84-110. Full text available here.

Ciara Brennan, Ray Purdy and Peter Hjerp, ‘Political, Economic and Environmental Crisis in Northern Ireland: The True Cost of Environmental Governance Failures and Opportunities for Reform’ (2017) Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 68(2) 123-157. Full text available here.

Policy Papers and Reports

Alison Hough, Brexit, the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, and the Environment: Issues arising and possible solutions (2019) Environmental Pillar and Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL). The executive summary is available here and full report is available here.

A policy paper on the future of environmental governance in Northern Ireland: Ciara Brennan, Mary Dobbs, Viviane Gravey and Attracta Uí Bhroin, Policy Paper: The Future of Environmental Governance in Northern Ireland (July, 2018). Available here.

R. Purdy and P. Hjerp, Review of Environmental Governance in Northern Ireland: Identifying the drivers for change and considering solutions (2016) Available here.