Modern 'lawfare' exposed
Sky News: 4th March 2025: Sam Coates reports on a little-known international tying-up major infrastructure projects in the courts using millions of pounds of taxpayer cash.
"An obscure international agreement known as the Aarhus Convention, named after Denmark's second city, is delaying some of the biggest industrial projects in the country.
Around 80 cases a year are brought under the convention, Sky News has learned, which caps the costs of anyone bringing a case at £5,000 if the case is brought by an individual or £10,000 by organisations.
If this convention did not exist, costs would otherwise be awarded against a claimant for the losing side's legal fees in the event the claimant is unsuccessful - and could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands or even higher.
This means it's costing the taxpayer millions every year in legal fees - on top of what critics say is hundreds of millions of additional costs for developers as projects go through the courts...
Even some in the environmental movement believe it is being abused... Many of the cases are brought by specialist human rights and environmentalist law firm Leigh Day... These cases leave the taxpayer facing bills of millions of pounds, and developer costs reaching into the hundreds of millions because of delays to building work...
...former Norfolk councillor... Andrew Boswell... is in court once more challenging the first carbon capture storage project on a gas-fired power station, which is due to be built on Teesside. He said he was challenging the project on the grounds it would break the government's promises to adhere to carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act..."
.... Ben Houchen, the Tory Teesside mayor, whose Teesworks site will host the carbon capture and storage gas power station, said the system must change.... [and] called for "fundamental reform" to help "stop these activists from being able to stop any sort of economic growth and investment that creates jobs"..."