Book contents
- Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making
- Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making: Introduction
- Part I Theorising Legal Expertise
- Part II In-House Legal Expertise
- Part III External Legal Expertise
- 10 The Rise of Transnational Legal Experts: Two Lessons from Research on Private Practitioners As Euro-Lawyers
- 11 Rock ’n’ Roll Stars or Guitar Technicians? Legal Advisors As Legal Experts in NGO Lobbying
- 12 Legal Expertise, Environmental Groups and Brexit: Beyond the Limits
- 13 Bureaucrats in the Classroom? Epistemic Governance and the Expert Legal Scholar
- 14 Verfassungsblog, Legal Expertise and Why Europe’s ‘Computer Is Not Working As It Should’
- 15 Afterword: The Four Questions and One Answer
- Index
12 - Legal Expertise, Environmental Groups and Brexit: Beyond the Limits
from Part III - External Legal Expertise
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2022
- Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making
- Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making: Introduction
- Part I Theorising Legal Expertise
- Part II In-House Legal Expertise
- Part III External Legal Expertise
- 10 The Rise of Transnational Legal Experts: Two Lessons from Research on Private Practitioners As Euro-Lawyers
- 11 Rock ’n’ Roll Stars or Guitar Technicians? Legal Advisors As Legal Experts in NGO Lobbying
- 12 Legal Expertise, Environmental Groups and Brexit: Beyond the Limits
- 13 Bureaucrats in the Classroom? Epistemic Governance and the Expert Legal Scholar
- 14 Verfassungsblog, Legal Expertise and Why Europe’s ‘Computer Is Not Working As It Should’
- 15 Afterword: The Four Questions and One Answer
- Index
Summary
Since the Brexit referendum, UK environmental NGOs have fought hard to shape the post-Brexit environmental law landscape. In this chapter, we argue that notwithstanding some clear weaknesses in the general place of legal expertise in UK environmental groups, the sector leant heavily on that expertise in advocacy around Brexit-environment, and with some success. Our research reveals three key weaknesses in legal expertise for advocacy in environmental NGOs: first, its scarcity; second, a patchy understanding of what it can do for a movement (beyond litigation); and finally, its lack of prominence in NGO leadership and strategic thinking. We identify two closely related features of the Brexit context that contribute to explaining both the insider, advocacy focus of environmental groups at this time, as well as the apparent paradox of a heavy use of legal expertise in that advocacy. First, political opportunities made demands on, and provided particular openings for, insider legally expert advocacy. This, we argue, created a specific set of what we call hybrid political-legal opportunities. Second, the post-referendum landscape created a space for intensive collaborative activity.
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- Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making , pp. 246 - 268Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022