SCELG at fringe event of the Law Society of Scotland

On the 25^{th of} March 2023, PhD Candidate Iona McEntee contributed to the panel discussions during the Law Society of Scotland’s fringe event at the Spring Conference for the Scottish Green Party.  The fringe event centred around discussions of sustainability and environmental justice, whilst also focussing upon climate consciousness and socially responsible action. In her presentation, Iona focussed on the development of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in the international legal regime, to then situate the proposed integration of this right within the Scottish context. Accordingly, Iona highlighted that whilst Scotland is yet to include a right to a healthy environment within its domestic setting, this has been on the national agenda, with discussions proposing the inclusion of this right into the Human Rights (Scotland) Act (2023). In contextualising a right to a healthy environment in Scotland, Iona discussed the nature of this right as moving beyond being solely aspirational, but in fact operational, with the inclusion of substantive and procedural rights. Throughout this discussion, Iona framed the benefit of integrating a human-rights based approach as beneficial to protecting the environment whilst also addressing forms of injustice.