New Thought-In-Progress Series

The Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) has launched a new Thought-in-Progress (TIP) series to create a forum to present and test new ideas in environmental law and politics that may not yet be fully developed into a paper.

The first TIP presenter will be our very own Dr Richard Caddell presenting his thoughts on the following:

Wednesday 21st April, 12-1pm

What’s SUP? Single-Use Plastics and the Regulation of the Marine Environment in Wales

The horrifying images of wholesale plastic pollution in the Blue Planet II series has focused public concerns about the pervasive impact of plastic within global seas and waterways. Chilling projections that future oceans will have soon contain more pieces of plastic than individual fish have galvanised regulatory activities across a host of national, regional and global actors. This presentation considers the intriguing legal context of regulating marine plastic in the ocean environment of Wales. Wales has a global reputation for its outsize achievements in waste management policy and similar aspirations are expressed for tackling marine plastic.  Against this backdrop, this presentation considers how plastic policies have emerged in Wales to date, how the pioneering commitments towards securing the wellbeing of future generations may contribute to this holistic process and how the creeping centralisation of the Internal Market Act may exert a chilling effect upon devolved ambitions towards combating the presence and impacts of single-use plastics in Welsh waters.

If you would like to attend, please email PontinB@cardiff.ac.uk

Look out for our announcement of the next TIP presenter in May, Dr Ricardo Pereira, who is loooking to develop his arguments on the following:

Multi-level Cross-Border Responses to Illegal Wildlife Trade: International, European and National Perspectives

According to the European Commission’s 2016 Wildlife Trafficking Action Plan,  Europe is currently a significant destination market and a hub for wildlife trafficking in transit to other regions and it is also a region from which certain species are sourced for illegal trade. The EU Member States have reported, in particular, seizures of ivory and rhino horns in transit and illegal imports of live reptiles and exotic birds, while several tonnes of highly endangered eels from the EU have been illegally sold to Asia. A 2018 UNEP study on global environmental crime reports that wildlife crime is a particularly persistent problem in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where all kinds of species – mammals, birdlife, reptiles and amphibians, insects, and plants – are affected.  

We hope you are able to join us and look forward to seeing you there.