On Tuesday, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), the court of last resort for Britain’s overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries, brought a lawsuit back to life aimed at blocking the construction of an airstrip in Antigua and Barbuda heartening environmentalists. It was established that the lawsuit’s plaintiffs have standing to challenge the construction of the airstrip, even though the structure is already complete.
The case emerged due to an airstrip built on the island of Barbuda starting in 2017, however without a permit. Noted marine biologist and conservationist John Mussington queried the builders regarding the lack of permits and the missing environmental impact assessment during his visit to the site in November of that year. Mussington was particularly concerned about the potential negative impact on the local fauna’s feeding and breeding grounds as a result of this construction.
Subsequently, Antigua and Barbuda’s airport authority submitted an application for a construction permit within a month of Mussington’s visit which was granted in 2018. However, the approval did not put to rest the concern as Mussington, along with retired teacher Jaclyn Frank, contested the newly built airstrip. They accused the responding parties of breaking the country’s Physical Planning Act 2003.
The duo won an injunction against the airstrip’s construction before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court’s High Court of Justice, but the decision was subsequently reversed by the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal found in a later judgement that the plaintiffs did not have standing under the Supreme Court’s civil procedure rules to seek judicial review. This lead to the decision being contested in JCPC.
The JCPC was tasked to answer whether the Supreme Court erred in deciding that the plaintiffs did not have standing. In response, the JCPC ruled that the Supreme Court unjustly dismissed a UK case about standing to sue over road construction. This established that the plaintiffs had a “sufficient interest” in bringing the case. As the Physical Planning Act was not adhered to and the plaintiffs could possibly deal with environmental damage, the plaintiffs could be seen as “substantially affected” by the airstrip.
It is of note that Antigua and Barbuda are signatories to the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean“, whose purpose is to ensure public participation in environmental decisions.
This matter comes in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017 that severely damaged or even destroyed 90 percent of structures in Barbuda. Interestingly, the disputed Barbuda airstrip began to be built a few weeks after the hurricane hit. In 2021, a group of UN experts called for Antigua and Barbuda’s government to better protect Barbuda’s wetlands, especially as constructions of a luxury resort in a vulnerable area had been undertaken.