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This decision by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal (NICA) on 16 September 2025 is the latest stage of long-running litigation concerning odour from the Mullaghglass landfill, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. It is an object lesson in the various pitfalls which may stand in the way of a successful judicial review of public authorities’ response to environmental problems.
First, the parties. Ms McAleenon lived just over a mile from the landfill site and had been affected by odours from about 2018 onwards, caused by hydrogen sulphide generated by the waste. She sued Lisburn Council (LCCC) who were under a duty to investigate potential statutory nuisances in their area. She also added as defendants the NI Environment Agency (NIEA), which ran the environmental permitting system for the landfill, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA, the Northern Irish equivalent of DEFRA) who oversaw NIEA. She filed medical evidence from a Dr Sinha supporting a linkage between hydrogen sulphide and lung damage.
In May 2022, Ms McAleenon failed before Humphreys J against all defendants. She appealed to the Court of Appeal ([2023] NICA 15), who did not engage with the merits but determined that Ms McAleenon had alternative remedies which she should have pursued – her own statutory nuisance prosecution or a civil claim for private nuisance. Part of their reasoning was that it was unjust that the claim should be determined without cross-examination of the relevant expert witnesses.
This decision was reversed by the Supreme Court in 2024. The SC said that it is a matter for a claimant to decide which sorts of claims were better calculated to request environmental regulators to comply with their public law duties: [4] of the latest NICA decision.
The SC referred the case back to NICA, and hence this decision of 16 September 2025.
But this choice of remedy for Ms McAlennon came at a cost. She chose the public law route and she had therefore to abide by the public law rules about deference to the specialist regulators’ opinions when concerned with hazardous activities. Ultimately it was these principles which led to the NICA to dismiss her claim. But, for her status as victim under the Convention, it probably did not matter that Ms McAleenon had moved out of the immediate vicinity of the landfill, nor did it matter that the landfill had closed in November 2022.
On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered an advisory Opinion on the “obligations of states in respect of climate change” from 15 judges, in 130+ pages. Its ruling was unanimous, with a strong closing flourish trailed in my title. There has been a great burst of favourable responses to the Opinion which was delivered yesterday, for instance the Center for International Environmental Law.
But what does the Opinion say, and does it matter?
The questions
The request for the Opinion had come from the UN General Assembly in March 2023. After a typically baggy “chapeau” of potentially relevant climate change and human rights treaties, the UN GA sought answers to the following questions
What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases for States and for present and future generations?
What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, with respect to:
States, including, in particular, small island developing States, which due to their geographical circumstances and level of development, are injured or specially affected by or are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change?
The peoples and individuals of the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change?”
In December 2014, the ICJ heard oral submissions from 96 states and 11 international organisations (including the EU, the African Union, WHO, and various organisations representing small island states). Major emitting states such as the UK, the US, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait made individual submissions. This response marks the importance that most UN states attached to this process.
Written transparency of the case is excellent: all those submissions, the written statements preceding them, and the underlying treaties and legal materials are to be found on the ICJ website here.
An ICJ advisory Opinion is just that – advisory. As the ICJ itself acknowledges, it has no binding force, but they may carry great weight and, as the ICJ hopes, “moral authority”. Such opinions are not for bruising fights between individual state parties. Their aim is that the ICJ contribute to the clarification and development of international law.
So how does this Opinion advance the sum of international law knowledge on climate change?
On 22 September 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee found that the Australian Government had violated the human rights of various Torres Strait islanders through climate change inaction.
The rights in issue arose under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights of 1966, and in particular the right to life (Article 6), the right to be free from arbitrary interference with privacy, family and home (Article 17), the rights of the child (Article 24), and the right of indigenous minorities to enjoy their culture – all of which rights should be respected and ensured to all individuals (Article 2).
Harrison Jalla and others v. (1) Shell International Trading and Shipping Company (2) Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited [2021[ EWCA Civ 63 – read judgment
A traditional phrase in the common law, such as “continuing nuisance”, may mean a number of things in different contexts, as we will see clearly from this oil spill case. The claimants argued, unsuccessfully, that the presence of oil from the spill which had come onto their land was a continuing nuisance for as long as it remained there – which, they said, should get them around the limitation problems in their claims.
Most UK people’s 2020 Christmas eves were cheered by the news that we had some sort of Brexit deal – here, in all its majesty. Given the deadline for no deal, some deal, however thin, was a good deal better than nothing, with the ill-tempered chaos between the UK and a major trading partner which would have followed from the latter.
News in the last few weeks has concentrated on some of the immediate supply chain issues (notably fishing) which affect businesses, and whether those issues are long-term and intrinsic in any non-single-market Brexit (my view), or can be ironed out in time (as Leavers say).
But there are other long term issues such as environmental protection which are potentially affected by the deal. These have not really picked up in the media. One exception is the very helpful briefing by Greener UK (a group of the major UK environmental NGOs) – here.
The prism for any analysis of the deal is that it is a Trade and Cooperation deal, and the environmental commitments, such as they are, are tied into trade implications – to retain a level playing field for that trade.
The other thing to remember is that it is a public international law agreement, full of the terminology of such agreements, well trodden by the EU in terms of external agreements, and more generally. Put the other way, don’t read it like an EU directive, let alone a UK statute.
To a seasoned follower of environmental policy in Europe, its terms are like winding the clock back 40-odd years. The initial environmental directives (notably on water and waste in the mid-1970s) had no express Treaty hook on which to be hung. The hook only arrived with effect from the end of 1992, when the Treaty was amended. So environmental policy measures in those early days were couched essentially in trade terms.
So what does the deal (a.k.a the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or TCA) tell us? Here are my first thoughts.
R (Finch) v. Surrey County Council et al [2020] EWHC 3559 (QB) – read judgment
Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA is the process by which a developer and a planning authority look at whether a particular project is likely to have significant direct or indirect effects on the environment. And an EIA must address a factors such as human health, biodiversity, land, water and climate as well as cultural heritage and landscape.
But how far does the enquiry have to go? This is the very stark question raised by this planning case.
The developer wanted to drill oil from the Horse Hill site in Surrey (see pic) for a production period of 20 years. The crude oil thus won would be tankered offsite for refining by others. The refined product would probably be used for transportation, but also for heat, manufacturing and in the petrochemical industry.
The issue was whether the local authority could stop its EIA lines of enquiry when it had considered the setting up works and the oil production processes, or whether it had to assess the wider climate change implications of long-term use of the oil so produced.
The judge, Holgate J was firmly of the view that the assessment process was limited to the first. Surrey’s EIA process was thus sufficient.
R (o.t.a Friends of the Earth et al) v. Heathrow Airport Ltd [2020] UKSC 52 – read judgment
In February 2020, the Court of Appeal decided that the Government policy on airport expansion at Heathrow was unlawful on climate change grounds. The Supreme Court has now reversed this decision.
The policy decision under challenge was an Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS). An NPS sets the fundamental framework within which further planning decisions will be taken. So, in traditional terms, it is not a planning permission; that would come later, via, in this case, the mechanism of a Development Consent Order (DCO), which examines the precise scheme that is proposed. The ANPS (like any NPS) narrows the debate at the DCO stage. Objectors cannot say, for example, that the increase in capacity could better be achieved at Gatwick. Government policy has already decided it shouldn’t be.
The ANPS was made in 2018 by the Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling), after many years of commissions and debates about airport expansion.
The other major policy player in this litigation was the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This was concluded in December 2015, and was ratified by the UK on 17 November 2016. The Paris Agreement commits parties to restrict temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The UK’s domestic climate change legislation derives from the Climate Change Act 2008. The Planning Act 2008 (setting out the NPS system) required government in a given NPS (a) to explain how it takes account of its policy on climate change (s.5(8)) and (b) to exercise its NPS functions with regard to the desirability of mitigating and adapting to climate change (s.10).
The challenges debated in the Supreme Court revolved around (1) these two sections of the PA 2008, (2) a debate about the impact of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (2011/92/EU), and (3) claims that the SoS has failed to take into account long-term (post-2050) and non-CO2 emissions.
One curious element of this appeal is that it was Hamlet without the Prince. After seeking to defend the case in the CA, the SoS did not appear in the SC, where Heathrow did all the running. Whether this non-appearance by the SoS was anything to do with the Honourable Member for Hillingdon’s undertaking (Boris Johnson MP) some years ago to lie in front of the bulldozers before the third runway was laid is of course unknowable. But as we shall see, this did not stop Heathrow’s arguments winning the day. So, possibly, central government’s policy objective achieved without political risk.
At first sight, a rather abstruse dispute, but the 63 page judgment of Henshaw J gives rise to a host of important and difficult human rights points. But his central conclusion is that a statute which was not challengeable at the time of its enactment became so, because of the subsequent evolution of the law, principally common law, to the detriment of insurers.
Sounds mildly counter-intuitive? Not, I think, so, when the story has unfolded.
For a while, 6 Portuguese citizens, between the ages of 8 and 21, have been on the brink of starting proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights. Now it has happened. On 3 September 2020, they sent their claim to the ECtHR. They have been helped in its preparation by the Global Legal Network, which has helpfully put up here a summary as well as the salient parts of the documents sent to the Court.
The claim is against 33 Council of Europe countries (all the EU 27, plus the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine) for failing to take sufficient steps to address climate change. The failures alleged include permitting emissions domestically, permitting the export of fossil fuels extracted from their territories, permitting the import of goods containing embedded carbon, and allowing entities domiciled in those countries to contribute to emissions abroad (via fossil fuel extraction elsewhere or its financing).
On 30 March 2018, whilst working on the demolition of an oil tanker on the beach at Chittagong, Bangladesh, Mr Mollah fell to his death.
There is powerful evidence that essentially manual ship breaking of this sort is extremely unsafe and carries environmental risk given the asbestos and heavy metals aboard: see e.g. the work of NGO Shipbreaking Platform here. It does not take much more than a glance at the photographs to appreciate the problem. Conditions were grim; Mr Mollah was working at least 70 hours a week for long pay. Some 200,000 workers are thought to work under these conditions.
But this litigation is happening in the UK Courts. Mr Mollah’s widow did not even know the name of her Bangladeshi employer and she did not sue the owner of the “yard” there – in practice, the beach.
This is, to say the least, a rather unfortunate saga. The Claimant, Mr Serafin, brought a defamation claim against a Polish newspaper run by the Defendants. An article had alleged various things including that he was financially untrustworthy and was dishonest in his dealings with women. At trial before Jay J, he represented himself. He was comprehensively disbelieved by the judge. His claim was dismissed, in most cases because the judge found that the article was accurate, but in some instances because the defendants had a public interest defence under s. 4 Defamation Act 2013.
The Supreme Court, via a single judgment from Lord Wilson, thought that the judge’s judgment was “remarkable”, “intricately constructed and beautifully written”. So what, if anything, had gone wrong, and why did the SC order a retrial?
R (o.t.a. Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd and Jacqueline Lewis) v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 16- read judgment
As I said in my post on the 1st instance decision, many people like to have a say over the investment policies of their pension funds. They may not want investment in fossil fuels, companies with questionable working practices, arms manufacturers, Israel or indeed any company which supports Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip – to choose but a few of people’s current choices. And pension funds, left to their own devices, may wish to adopt one or more of these choices to reflect their pensioners’ views. But can they under current local authority pensions law?
This case is about Government “Guidance” aimed at local authorities, banning some of those “ethical” objections to investment policies but allowing other objections. “Guidance” in quotes because the net effect of the Act and secondary legislation was to make the Guidance mandatory: see [10] of Lord Wilson’s judgment. In particular, the policy ban was to apply to (a) boycotts to foreign nations and (b) UK defence industries. The sharp focus of the former was Israel. No surprises that the Quakers and the Campaign against the Arms Trade should appear in support of the challenge to the latter.
The Guidance is applicable to local government pensions affecting 5 million current or former employees. So it arose on that ceaseless battleground of government’s direction/intermeddling in local government affairs: was it or was it not authorised by the underlying legislation?
The Guidance said that those running local authority pensions must not use their policies to
pursue boycotts, divestment and sanctions…against foreign nations and UK defence industries…other than where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the Government;
or
“pursue policies that are contrary to UK foreign policy or UK defence policy”.
Did these prohibitions go beyond the SoS’s powers under the relevant pension provisions?
Answer, according to the Supreme Court, yes, but by a majority of 3-2.
Ofcom make some unlawful regulations in 2015, under which telecom companies have to pay higher fees. The regulations were quashed in 2017. Four telecom companies want restitutionary damages, being the difference between the sums paid under the 2015 regulations and the sums they would have paid under their predecessors, the 2011 regulations.
Big money washing around: the claim was for over £200m.
Ofcom says – no, you are only entitled to the difference between the 2015 payments and the hypothetical fees which we could lawfully have charged had we done our job properly in 2017.
Sounds quite simple, but the answer goes deep into the intersection between public and private law.
The claim, as I have said, was restitutionary.
Ofcom said that the law of restitution is rooted in the private law of obligations. The private law approach (as with any tort claim) is to apply a “but for” test – what would the telecoms have paid but for the unlawfulness? This involves the counterfactual: what lawful fees could Ofcom have imposed?
The telecoms, and the Court of Appeal, disagreed. Ofcom’s argument offended the principles of legality, and parity (the principle that those who pay voluntarily should not be worse off compared to those who refuse to pay and litigate).
Airport expansion has taken a long and winding road, not least at Heathrow. But the proponents of the 3rd runway at Heathrow would have been heartened by the Secretary of State’s decision in June 2018 to set out a policy which preferred Heathrow over Gatwick and which was designed to steer planning processes thereafter in support of the new runway.
It is this decision which has just been declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal.
I am afraid this is where the planning jargon starts and the acronyms proliferate. The challenged decision was an Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS). Under planning legislation, an ANPS “sets the fundamental framework within which further decisions will be taken,” as the CA put it in [275]. Those further decisions include the grant of permission for the particular project, done through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process. But you cannot challenge that fundamental framework later in the DCO process; you cannot say later, for instance, that expansion is not necessary at all, or there is a better alternative, say, Gatwick, if the ANPS has decided otherwise.
…..the graphic opening words of today’s decision by the Supreme Court in a defamation case. The next words are equally clear and arresting: ” What would those words convey to the “ordinary reasonable reader” of a Facebook Post?”
The context was a recently ended unhappy marriage between Mr Stocker (the Claimant) and Mrs Stocker (the Defendant), and a series of posts arising out of a Status Update by a Mrs Bligh (Mr Stocker’s new partner) in December 2015. Mrs Stocker and Mrs Bligh commented on each other’s posts for the next 2 hours 18 minutes. Mrs Stocker did not mince her words: “I hear you have been together 2 years? If so u might like to ask him who he was in bed with the last time he was arrested.”
This was quickly followed by “wouldn’t bring it up last time I accused him of cheating he spent a night in the cells, tried to strangle me..”. This was a reference to an incident which had happened some 12 years before.
Mr S did not take kindly to this attempt “to blacken [him] in the eyes of his current girlfriend and belittle her”: as the Court of Appeal put it.
He sued. He won before the judge, and before the Court of Appeal.
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