Last Friday there was a meeting at the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society on the topic of water.

There are a number of interesting pdfs available to read and the event looks like it was quite interesting. Here is a blurb from the website:
“Representatives from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Environment Agency, and the National Farmers’ Union were brought together with water industry and academic experts by the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society on Tuesday at an Oxford workshop to discuss the right to water in the face of increasing pressures associated with climate change.

The workshop, entitled Economic Rights and Regulatory Regimes: Is there still a ‘right’ to water? addressed the evolving environmental policy context of the UK government’s proposed reforms to the licensing system for abstracting water in England and Wales.

Dr Bettina Lange of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (Oxford University) and Dr Mark Shepheard from McGill University (Canada) convened the event, which was held at Wolfson College, Oxford before an audience of over fifty scholars and practitioners working on water and environmental issues.

In advance of the United Nations World Water Day on 22 March, which this year focuses on water cooperation, the workshop provided a timely opportunity for senior strategists at Defra, the Environment Agency, water companies, and the NFU to discuss the issues raised by increasing regulatory intervention and water scarcity linked to population growth and climate change. The event also enabled participants to formulate responses to the evolving environmental policy context of the UK government’s White Paper ‘Water for Life’ and Draft Water Bill announced last year and currently entering a period of assessment and consultation, which was outlined by Defra’s Head of Future Water Resource Management Project Henry Leveson-Gower.” READ MORE