Privy Council revives suit to block Antigua and Barbuda airstrip construction over environmental concerns News
© WikiMedia (Tom Morris)
Privy Council revives suit to block Antigua and Barbuda airstrip construction over environmental concerns

The court of last resort for Britain’s overseas colonies and some Commonwealth countries revived a lawsuit seeking to block the construction of an airstrip in Antigua and Barbuda over environmental concerns on Tuesday. The UK-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) concluded that the plaintiffs in the suit have standing to challenge the airstrip’s constriction, even though it had already been completed.

The case pertains to the construction of an airstrip on the island of Barbuda, which began in 2017 without a permit. Marine biologist and conservationist John Mussington visited the construction site in November of that year and confronted the builders about whether they had the proper permits and had conducted an environmental impact assessment. Mussington feared the airstrip’s construction would adversely affect the local fauna’s feeding and breeding grounds. Antigua and Barbuda’s airport authority subsequently applied for a construction permit within a month of Mussington’s visit, which was granted in 2018.

Mussington and retired teacher Jaclyn Frank challenged the airstrip’s construction that year before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court’s High Court of Justice, where they argued that the respondents violated the country’s Physical Planning Act 2003 by commencing construction without a permit. The plaintiffs won an injunction against the airstrip’s construction, later quashed by the Court of Appeal.

The high court subsequently declined to issue a second injunction. Following a cross-appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the appellants did not have standing under the Eastern Carribean Supreme Court’s civil procedure rules to seek judicial review. The appellants then took the Court of Appeal’s decision to the JCPC.

The question before the JCPC was whether the Supreme Court erred in concluding that the appellants did not have standing. The JCPC concluded that the Supreme Court erroneously disregarded a UK case about standing to sue over road construction and found that the appellants had “sufficient interest” to bring the case. The court reasoned that because the Physical Planning Act was not followed and because the appellants’ area could face environmental damage, the appellants are “substantially affected” by the airstrip.

The JCPC’s decision noted that Antigua and Barbuda is a signatory to the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean,” which aims to ensure public participation in environmental decisions.

Hurricane Irma devastated Antigua and Barbuda in 2017, damaginglevellingling 90 per cent of Barbuda’s structures, but construction of the Barbuda airstrip at issue began just weeks after the hurricane landed. In 2021, a group of UN experts called on Antigua and Barbuda’s government to protect Barbuda’s wetlands after constructing a luxury resort in a vulnerable area.

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