The Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive: A Potential Lever for Independent Environmental Regulation in Northern Ireland?

摘要

The ruling of the European Court of Justice in Case C-474/10 is the latest twist in a saga that has dominated the environmental agenda in Northern Ireland for the past decade; namely, the case for the creation of an independent environmental regulator. In effect, a preliminary reference to the Court under Article 267 TFEU-seeking, inter alia, clarification of the structural or governance arrangements that must be created to ensure compliance with the consultation procedure created by article 6(3) of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive 2001/42/EC-has produced a potential judicial lever for forcing reform of a key aspect of the contested arrangements for environmental governance in Northern Ireland, which years of political campaigning by environmental NGOs has failed to induce.