International Advisory Panel

Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) established its International Advisory Panel in February 2024 to provide an opportunity to tap into insights and advice on keeping pace with the European Union and wider international developments.

The Panel is a non-statutory forum that provides advice to ESS on international developments in environmental law, policy and regulation, and their potential impacts. It is made up of voluntary members with expertise in:

• European, UK and Scottish environmental law
• environmental science, regulation and policy
• the development and implementation of EU environmental policy and legislation

More information about the International Advisory Panel can be found within its Terms of Reference and an overview of its membership is below.

Professor Annalisa Savaresi

Chair of the International Advisory Panel

Professor Annalisa Savaresi is Professor of International Environmental Law at the Center for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law, University of Eastern Finland, where she serves as Director for the Joint Nordic Master Programme in Environmental Law. She furthermore holds a part-time post at the University of Stirling, UK and a visiting professorship at the University of Bologna (Italy).

Annalisa is an expert in environmental law, with twenty years’ experience working with international and nongovernmental organisations. She has written extensively on the relationship between human rights and climate change law. Her work has been cited widely, including by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Annalisa is currently Director for Europe of the Global Network on Human Rights and the Environment, associate editor of the Review of European, Comparative and International Law, and member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. She has given evidence to the UK, EU and Scottish Parliaments. Annalisa sits on the Board of Environmental Standards Scotland, the body scrutinising Scottish public authorities’ compliance with environmental law, and chairs its International Advisory Panel.

David Martin

Member of the International Advisory Panel

A Member of the European Parliament from 1984 to 2019 David Martin was the U.K.’s longest serving MEP specialising in constitutional affairs and international trade. He was also the Parliament’s longest serving Vice-President (1989-2004) where he led on internal reform and relations with National Parliaments.

David is now a Senior Advisor with Shearwater Global, Brussels advising Governments, public, and private entities on EU policy developments, structures and strategic engagement with the EU institutions.

Michael Nicholson

Member of the International Advisory Panel

Michael Nicholson is Head of UK Environmental Policy at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP UK). He currently manages IEEP UK’s overall programme of work but has specific responsibility for the organisation’s work on divergence in EU/UK environmental policy as well as its environmental governance, air quality and circular economy strands of work.

With more than fifteen years of experience in environment regulation, Michael joined IEEP in July 2021 after having worked in Brussels for the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL) where he headed up their operations and various programmes for over ten years. Before that he worked at the Environment Agency in England working on various international projects in the EU, Turkey and China.

Professor Joanne Scott

Member of the International Advisory Panel

Joanne Scott is Professor of European Law at the European University Institute in Florence and Honorary Professor of Law at University College London. At the EUI, she co-directs the Academy of European Law and the Inter-Disciplinary Research Cluster on Environmental Challenges and Climate Governance. She grew up in St Andrews and was educated at the University of Aberdeen and the European University Institute. She taught previously at UCL, Cambridge and Queen Mary and was visiting professor at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools.

Her research interests lie in the areas of environmental law, EU external relations law and international trade law. She has written widely on the legal mechanisms deployed by the EU to reduce the environmental footprint of consumption within it. In her current role, she supervises PhD researchers across a wide range of topics in EU and international environmental law. She has given advice to various governmental and non-governmental organisations on environmental matters and was previously a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

Joanne was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2012 and as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2013.

Brian Meaney

Member of the International Advisory Panel

Brian Meaney is Programme Manager in the Office of Environmental Sustainability in the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He currently manages the Industrial Control and Environmental Regulation Programme and is responsible for overseeing the licensing and regulation of industrial installations, intensive agriculture and GMOs.

Brian has almost 30 years’ experience with the Irish EPA with recent experience in the Office of Environmental Enforcement where he was responsible for regulatory enforcement at waste and industrial installations. Before that he was responsible for permitting industrial and waste installations and for decision-making on by-products and end-of-waste.

In his career Brian has also worked on waste water treatment and research as well as waste and hazardous waste management planning and waste prevention programmes.

Member of the International Advisory Panel

Stefan Sipka is a Senior Policy Analyst and Head of the Sustainable Prosperity for Europe programme at the European Policy Centre (EPC) a Brussels based independent think tank. His work concerns a wide range of topics of relevance to the EU’s green agenda, with a particular focus on the circular economy. Stefan’s professional and academic output includes numerous projects, policy papers and recommendations, conferences and closed-door discussions.

Stefan has more than ten years of experience in the think tank scene. Stefan holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Belgrade and MSc in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management from the Lund University and the Central European University.