Director and Head of Birmingham Law School

Professor Robert Lee is ERIC Director and Head of Birmingham Law School

ERIC Director and Head of Birmingham Law School, Professor Robert Lee was ca former Dean of Cardiff Law School and co-director of the publicly funded Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society at Cardiff University. Professor Lee is an expert on regulation, including environmental regulation and regulation of biotechnology and biomedicine. He previously worked for two top 10 UK law firms, and remains a professional-development consultant to one of the largest law firms in Europe, working on pan-European delivery of legal services. He has worked for the UN Environment Programme and UN Development Programme on a series of international projects. Professor Lee is environmental editor of the Journal of Business Law, and Analysis Editor of the Journal of Environmental Law. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He has recently written a book on food regulation in Europe. His background and further details are available in Who’s Who.

Stand (alone) and deliver
Globalisation and Brexit - negotiating withdrawal from markets and access to alternative markets rather than working on reform or deregulation

ERIC advises Welsh Assembly on Natural Resources Wales

Professor Bob Lee was appointed Special Advisor to the National Assembly for Wales’ Environment and Sustainability Committee to advise on the creation of a single environmental body bringing together the Forestry Commission Wales (FCW), Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) and the Environment Agency Wales (EAW). The Committee reviewed a Business Case examining the costs and risks attached to the […]

Waste4Fuel or waste for fools?

Contempt proceedings The Environment Agency has failed in its attempt for a committal for contempt against a Kent waste company, Waste4Fuel, and its directors following a hearing in the High Court in London and a judgment handed down on 21 July 2014: see The Environment Agency v Hughes and Others [2014] EWHC 2484 (QB). The […]

New rules aid 20-20-20 targets

New rules on public funding for projects in the field of environmental protection and energyhave been announced by the European Commission, which aim to facilitate the meeting of 2020 climate targets by Member States. These targets, known as the “20-20-20” targets, set three key objectives for 2020: A 20% reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions […]

Biodiversity Offsets

Long awaited and controversial plans for ‘biodiversity offsets’ are the subject of a consultation published as part of the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) response to a March report by the independent, business-led Ecosystems Market Task Force, which backed proposals for biodiversity offsetting The idea of biodiversity offsetting is that developers may […]

Judicial Review

As widely reported in the Press, speaking at theCBI conference in November, David Cameron slated judicial review as a “massive growth industry” which was delaying action and costing taxpayers too much money. One good, recent example of a judicial review application that has cost the taxpayer a considerable sum of money is the challenge to […]

Aviation Emission Freeze

The European Commission has suggested suspending the enforcement processes attaching to aviation with the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for the period of a year. The proposal is part of a strategy to persuade non-EU states to formulate some alternative programme which can apply globally to combat emissions of greenhouse gases from the aviation sector. […]

Aarhus Implementation

It is always pleasing to see your work cited but the pleasure is mixed with surprise when you see also that some account has been taken of it. I had this unusual experience over the Summer when the Ministry of Justice accepted that research work that I had helped conduct did indeed appear to show […]

Solar subsidies

Background This case arises out of Government widely debated plans to halve the rate of subsidies supporting solar energy installations (the feed-in tariff). Fearing that the scheme was unaffordable, the Government announced a cut to the rate for all eligible installations with effect from 12 December 2011, even though its own consultation on the proposals […]