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Queensland Conservation Council Inc. v. Xstrata Coal [coal mine/licencing]

Country/Territory
Australia
Type of court
National - higher court
Date
Sep 12, 2007
Source
UNEP, InforMEA
Court name
Court of Appeal
Judge
McMurdo P.; Holmes J. A.; Mackenzie J.
Reference number
2007 QCA 338
Language
English
Subject
Energy, Air & atmosphere, Environment gen.
Abstract

An Australian state court reversed a lower tribunal’s decision, which granted an extension to Xstrata’s mining lease and denied Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) the ability to amend the conditions of the extension. The tribunal, concluding that the causal link between the mine’s greenhouse gas emissions and harms caused by global warming is an assumption, relied on evidence that was raised in neither Xstrata nor the QCC’s case. The court of appeals held that the tribunal, by merely informing the parties that it had become aware of documents which might be relevant to its decision, did not satisfy its obligation to afford the parties procedural fairness by giving them a real opportunity to present information or argument on a matter not already obvious but in fact regarded as important by the decision-maker.

(Source: Provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-climate-change-litigation/ )

Full text
20071012_2007-QCA-338_decision.pdf
Website
climatecasechart.com