Legal Mobilisation and the Dutch Nitrogen Crisis: Connecting Legal Stock and Framing

Join us on 17 June to hear Professor Chris Hilson (University of Reading) speaking about his research on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and the extent to which the ‘legal stock’ shaped the environmental movement’s framing of nitrogen as a biodiversity problem (rather than a climate or a pollution one).

Introduction

The paper explores the Dutch nitrogen crisis through a legal mobilisation lens. It employs two key conceptual elements from that literature – framing, and legal opportunity structure (LOS). The paper analyses the extent to which the ‘legal stock’ within LOS in the form of the EU Habitats Directive shaped the environmental movement’s framing of nitrogen as a biodiversity problem (rather than a climate or a pollution one). It further discusses the idea of ‘stealthy’ framing, where the legal stock used does not reflect the movement’s real motivation, but argues that the nitrogen litigation here is not an example of that.

Speaker

Professor Chris Hilson joined the School of Law of the University of Reading in 1996 from the Environmental Services Association, where he acted for a short time as a policy advisor to the waste industry. Prior to that he was a lecturer in law at the University of Leeds from 1993-1996.

He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Law from 2008-2012 and has acted as an adviser on environmental law to NGOs including ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth.

His current research interests are in the areas of UK, EU and comparative environmental law and policy, climate law, and law and social movements.