AS the founder of Client-Earth, James Thornton is a lawyer offering hope. There may be some people, suspicious of the law, to whom this may seem like an oxymoron. However, Mr Thornton is an unusual lawyer, with an extraordinary brief he takes from the earth itself. On its behalf, he wants to stop climate change, save wildlife, clean up the oceans and purify the air. He’ll do this—and more—to help all of us, using legal means. Impossible? Think again. ‘So far,’ says Mr Thornton in his habitually soft, lightly American voice, ‘everything we’ve tried has been successful.’
Look at what happened to air pollution in Britain. ‘Forty thousand people were dying early from it every year. There was a clear law, to which the UK Parliament had signed up. But the Government had not brought air into compliance.’ The deadline to do so was 2010. A polite solicitor’s letter elicited the response that the Government would give no thought to the issue until at least 2025.
‘So we went to court on behalf of all breathers of air. The supreme court gave us an injunction; we have since been back to court twice. Slowly, plans are being written—too slowly, but they are being written.’ This has not only been achieved by victory in the courts. ‘Parents all over the country are demanding clean air.’ Legal action works best when supported by a popular campaign.
この記事は Country Life UK の October 30, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の October 30, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
