Through our resources and outreach work, we aim to make individuals, community groups and organisations more aware of their environmental rights and identify areas for policy and law reform.
Resources
- Advocacy Manifesto: Summary of Recommendations – a concise overview of our recommendations for delivering an enforceable right to a healthy environment.
- FAQs – our ‘frequently asked questions’ provide basic information on key environmental issues
- 3-year Snapshot of Advice Service: 325 enquiries
- Environmental Rights Summit 2023: In review
- Guides – our guides on environmental law are useful for detailed information
- Voices for justice – these blogs give voice to the lived experience of people across Scotland fighting environmental injustices
- Videos
- Events & webinars
- Briefings & reports
- Consultation responses
For specific legal advice, please use the enquiry form
Guides
- Guide to the biodiversity duty, October 2024
- Guide to Judicial Review in Scotland, March 2024
- Guide to Defamation Law, March 2024
- Guide to Tree Preservation Orders, June 2023
- Guide to statutory nuisance, updated May 2023
- Guide to Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), updated May 2023
- Guide to the right to protest, October 2021
- Guide on environmental information and how to obtain it, May 2020
FAQs & information sheets
- Access to Justice FAQ, October 2024
- 3-year Snapshot of Advice Service: 325 enquiries, September 2024
- PFAS FAQ, January 2024
- Air pollution FAQ, updated January 2024
- Pesticides FAQ, October 2023
- Right to a healthy environment FAQ, March 2023
- Water pollution FAQ, November 2022
- Greenspace FAQ, October 2022
- Access to justice on the environment, and whether Scotland is providing it, updated September 2021
- Access to environmental information: the importance of the European framework, June 2020
Videos
November 2024: watch the Environmental Justice Network Film on the systematic barriers to accessing environmental justice in Scotland.
September 2023: watch our animated video on the human right to a healthy environment and find out what it is, why it is important and how we can use it to protect people and the environment.
Lunchtime 101 webinars
Briefings & reports
- Efficiency savings and costs of a Scottish Environment Court, Feb 2025
- Advocacy Manifesto: Summary of Recommendations, Nov 2024
- Report on ERCS’s first 11 representations to Environmental Standards Scotland, Sept 2024
- The non-enforcement of Scotland’s engine idling ban, July 2024
- Scotland’s new protective expenses rules remain non-compliant with the Aarhus Convention, July 2024
- A call for urgent action to reform civil legal aid in Scotland, joint briefing with Human Rights Consortium Scotland and JustRight Scotland, July 2024
- Scotland’s lack of progress on delivering access to justice, June 2024
- Scotland’s Climate Change Plan – emerging implementation issues, joint briefing with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, June 2024
- Scoping a Domestic Legal Framework for Ecocide in Scotland, March 2024
- Protective Expenses Orders: Investigation reveals why legal expenses regime needs reform, November 2023
- Review of Environmental Governance Consultation, Oct 2023
- The Substantive Right to a Healthy Environment, June 2023
- The clear and urgent case for a Scottish Environment Court (briefing), May 2023
- The clear and urgent case for a Scottish Environment Court (report), Gemmell, March 2023
- Protective Expenses Orders remain a barrier to justice, November 2022
- Equal rights of appeal and access to justice , August 2022. You can also read our formal communication to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee
- Advocacy Manifesto – An enforceable human right to a healthy environment, December 2021. Or you can just read our one-page Summary of Recommendations
- Recommendations for a plan of action on judicial expenses, November 2021
- Why Scotland needs an environmental court or tribunal, October 2021
- Commissioned by the Human Rights Consortium Scotland, the relationship between our right to a healthy environment and three other rights:
- How the human right to a healthy environment advances the rights of disabled people – joint briefing with Inclusion Scotland, September 2021
- How the human right to a healthy environment advances our right to health, September 2021
- The relationship between the human right to a healthy environment and the right to food, September 2021
- Human right to healthy environment – summary joint briefing with Scottish LINK, March 2021
- Human right to healthy environment – full joint briefing with Scottish LINK , March 2021
Consultation responses
- National Marine Plan 2 planning position statement, February 2025
- Electricity infrastructure consenting in Scotland, November 2024
- ERCS response to Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018: proposed amendments, April 2024
- Proposed Ecocide (Prevention) (Scotland) Bill, February 2024
- Review of the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance, October 2023
- Review of the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance (draft template response), September 2023
- Human Rights (Scotland) Bill, September 2023
- Human Rights (Scotland) Bill – Part 5: Recognising the Right to a Healthy Environment (draft template response), August 2023
- Freedom of Information Reform (Scotland) Bill, March 2023
- Access to Information Rights in Scotland, March 2023
- Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation, Oct 2022
- Environmental Standards Scotland – Strategic Plan, Aug 2022
- Court Fees, March 2022
- Land Court Merger, October 2020
