Mark Poustie

Engaging Students and Enhancing Skills: Lessons from the Development of a Web-supported International Environmental Law Conference Simulation

This article discusses a move from a traditional lecture and tutorialbased environmental law class to a class involving a large element of websupported simulation in the context of a simulated international environmental conference in session 1999-2000. Lectures and tutorials were retained for support purposes, but much class time was devoted to plenary sessions of the conference. The key reasons for the change were (1) the desire to move to an active learning environment where students were at the centre of the learning process and would be learning by doing; and (2) to integrate and enhance negotiating, team working and IT skills in the class. Students were given a unique insight into environmental law decision-making. The role-playing of students acting as state and NGO delegations on the basis of the real positions of these delegations was a strong motivating factor in the learning process. Although the class co-ordinator established the framework for negotiations the progress of those negotiations and the ultimate outcome was a matter for the students. While the outcome was an important motivating factor it was not significant in terms of the learning experience as students were assessed by means of a reflective report which was designed to assess what they had learned from the process in terms of legal understanding, negotiating issues and team-working. Although there were some student concerns regarding a perceived lack of environmental law content identified in the evaluation of the class the assessed student reports demonstrated this to be unfounded. The web-support aspects facilitated: (1) asynchronous learning - particularly negotiation and the development of negotiation skills; (2) the provision of ready access to a range of conference documentation and learning materials; and (3) just-in-time access to documentation such as updated versions of the draft treaty as negotiations progressed. Although the design and prepCorrespondence: aration of the simulation was fairly onerous, once established little new effort was required to run the simulation again. There were departmental resource issues in terms of web-support staff which somewhat delayed the availability of the web-support facilities, but these have now been addressed. The evaluation of the project has demonstrated that the web-supported simulated conference has considerable educational value in facilitating active learning and the integration and enhancement of key skills in the law curriculum. It has also demonstrated that other types of simulation may be possible within the law curriculum.

Planning Call-in: ‘Scandalous’ Delay and Partiality

Redland Aggregates Ltd (now Lafarge Redland Aggregates Ltd-hereafter Lafarge) applied for planning permission for a superquarry at Lingerbay on the Isle of Harris on 25 March 1991.1 Western Isles Islands Council (WIIC) informed the then Secretary of State for Scotland (Secretary of State) on 24 June 1993 that they were minded to grant the application. However, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) recommended to the Secretary of State that he call in the application. On 6 January 1994 the Secretary of State informed WIIC that he was calling in the application for determination, and a public local inquiry was held between 11 October 1994 and 6 June 1995 before a reporter. SNH was the principal objector at the inquiry. The application was also opposed by the Link Quarry Group which comprised members of a number of environmental and other bodies including Friends of the Earth. Michael Scott, then Scottish Officer of Plantlife, and Kevin Dunion, then Director of Friends of the Earth (Scotland), both gave evidence against the application on behalf of the Link Quarry Group. Both Mr Scott and Mr Dunion are now members of the Main Board of SNH, continuing in office until at least 31 March 2002 and 31 March 2003 respectively.