Climate Bar Association research finds that people don’t report environmental crimes for fear of upsetting neighbours
Cultural factors such as reluctance to confront neighbours, a lack of legal knowledge, and cumbersome procedures are just some of the barriers when it comes to enforcing environmental law in Ireland, research has shown.
Those were among the findings presented to the inaugural Climate Bar Association symposium, which featured a range of legal experts speaking on the future of environmental law as Ireland faces significant biodiversity and emissions-related challenges in the next decade and beyond. Dr Deirdre Ní Fhloinn, a practising barrister who specialises in residential and commercial construction disputes, told the symposium that "a consistent and resounding response" from many people within the latest research was that enforcement of environmental law was poor, as well the perception there are insufficient deterrents to stop environmental harm.
"Part of the reason is that we do not yet have a culture of actively reporting, acting on, and imposing sanctions in relation to that harm... We also don't appear to have a culture of widespread public education about the nature of our environment, in particular protection needed for ecosystems and habitats, and the part that all of us can play in ensuring that protection is meaningful and effective," she said.
Part of the reason is fear of reporting because of negative reaction within communities, the research undertaken by Dr Ní Fhloinn, Demetra Herdes of PILA, and Ruairí McCabe showed.
Louise Reilly BL, an international expert in arbitration, said in a paper co-authored with Bartholomew Begley, Charlotte Rose Bishop, and Mercedes McGovern, that the Oireachtas must pass legislation to make ecocide a domestic offence and support the recognition of the crime of ecocide at international level.
Ecocide is generally understood to mean the mass damage and destruction of nature, the paper said.
"First used to describe the destruction of over one-fifth of Vietnam’s forests by US forces during the Vietnam war in the 1970s, academics, legal scholars and activists have since pushed for the criminalisation of ecocide as an international crime, to sit within the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court," the paper said.
Ms Reilly told the symposium that the rights of nature should not be a radical idea, and that it deserved a legal status independent of people.
"That we give nature a status, a right to exist independent of us, independent of its benefits to humans. Although the idea might seem radical, the principles in fact was recognised in Brehon law [the law system in Ireland before the Normans], long before the imposition of the common law system in Ireland. We say that the legislature may draw on those principles to restore rights to nature."
The Climate Bar Association used the event to call for a new one-stop environmental court to deal with everyday issues like wildlife crime, illegal hedge cutting, and air and water pollution, along the lines of the Workplace Relations Commission or the Residential Tenancies Board.
Article originally appeared in the Irish Examiner on Jan 22nd 2022.