On windfarms and Whimbrel : Sustainable Shetland v The Scottish Ministers and another

• Main Author: Combe, Malcolm
• Other Authors: Dancer, Helen, Holligan, Bonnie, Howe, Helena
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomsbury 2024
• Subjects: Law; Whimbrel
• Online Access: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/88445/; https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/88445/1/Combe-Agnew-Bloomsbury-2024-On-windrafms-and-Whimbrel-Sustainable-Shetland.pdf

The judgment of the UK Supreme Court in the Sustainable Shetland case paved the way for a wind farm on the Mainland of Shetland. For those not au fait with the place, Shetland is the northernmost archipelago of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (over 200km away from the Scottish Mainland), and it is rather windy. Shetland’s location also saw it playing an important role in an earlier energy moment driven by the discovery of fossil fuels, namely the development of the North Sea oil and gas sector. A pivot towards renewable energy infrastructure might have a certain innate attraction in comparison to the hydrocarbon infrastructure that preceded it. As Agnew’s very selection of this case for an Earth Law reworking demonstrates, it is decidedly not that simple.