The Bar of Ireland’s specialist Climate Bar Association – Comhshaol has been the latest organisation to welcome the final report of The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss which was published yesterday (Wednesday, April 5).
However, the Climate Bar Association has cautioned that some of the recommendations for setting up review of frameworks and independent reviews of legislation, may actually serve to delay and complicate what it said is already a fragmented legislative process regarding environmental issues.
The association has stressed that that nature protection needs immediate and urgent action.
It is calling for the immediate consolidation and unified publication of all existing biodiversity law in a one-stop document i.e., a comprehensive environmental code, adding that further reviews and reports can come after.
Senior counsel, Clíona Kimber, chair of the Climate Bar Association said: “It is encouraging to see the strength of the recommendations put forward in the final report of the Citizens’ Assembly to protect Biodiversity.
“It is clear that the level of the crisis has been recognised by those taking part and it is now a matter for the soon to be established Dáil committee and government to work through the consideration and prioritisation of the recommendations.”
From a legal perspective, the Climate Bar Association has urged the government to prioritise the recommendation to amend the Irish Constitution with a view to protecting biodiversity.
Recommendations on biodiversity
Many of the recommendations made by the Climate Bar Association in its submission to the Citizens’ Assembly are among those included in the final report, it said.
- The state must develop an environmental court at circuit and district court levels, in order to hold policy-makers, businesses and citizens to account;
- All citizens should be empowered with ‘legal standing’ to protect nature and biodiversity in court;
- Constitutional referendum on biodiversity;
- Nature should be a holder of rights.
“We welcome the resolve of the citizens involved to ensure the purposeful and necessary conservation and restoration of biodiversity,” the association said.
“However, we would caution that some of the recommendations for reviews and amendment of existing law, as currently set out, may actually further complicate what is already a fragmented legislative process.
“In order for legislative change to be effective and implementable, we recommend the immediate enactment of an environmental code consolidating and organising existing laws and the unification of biodiversity law in order to make it more accessible in a single place.”
The association stated that currently, biodiversity law is scattered in too many separate places and that there needs to be an effective user-friendly consolidation of existing legislation.
“We welcome the recommendation to create more transparency and grant citizens greater access to information and inclusion in decision-making related to environmental issues in planning, and to oblige planners to consider biodiversity in all new developments, such as green corridors, and nesting bricks,” Kimber stated.
The association added that an effective sanctions regime should include civil and administrative sanctions, and not just criminal ones.
“Fines or fixed penalties may be more effective than criminal penalties, which are difficult and time-consuming to enforce. Revenue from these could be redirected to projects which promote biodiversity,” Kimber said.