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

Annalisa Savaresi is Associate 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 senior research post at the University of Stirling, UK and visiting professorships at the University of Bologna (Italy) and the University of La Sabana (Colombia).

Annalisa is an expert in environmental law, with 20 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 was previously an associate editor of the Review of European, Comparative and International Law and is currently Director for Europe of the Global Network on Human Rights and the Environment, and member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. She has given evidence to the UK, EU and Scottish Parliaments and sits on Environmental Standards Scotland’s Board.

David Martin

Member of the International Advisory Panel

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 15 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 10 years. Before that he worked at the Environment Agency in England working on various international projects in the EU, Turkey and China.

Darragh Page

Member of the International Advisory Panel

Darragh Page is Programme Manager in the Office of Environmental Sustainability in the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  He currently manages the Water, Energy and Business Support Programme and is responsible for overseeing the licensing of water abstractions, waste water discharges and the energy sector in Ireland as well as being responsible for the business support and legal team.

Darragh has over 20 years’ experience with the Irish EPA, the majority of which was in the Office of Environmental Enforcement where he was responsible for regulation of drinking water quality, waste water discharges and oversight of local authorities.  More recently he managed the national industrial enforcement team responsible for enforcement of over 800 industrial emissions directive licences across all sectors of industry. Prior to joining the EPA Darragh worked as an environmental consultant.

During his time with the EPA Darragh has spearheaded innovative enforcement initiatives which have resulted in significant improvements in drinking water quality, reduction in illegal peat harvesting and most recently led the introduction of the LEAP Portal which provides full public access to all the EPA enforcement activities and records.

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.

Stefan Sipka

Member of the International Advisory Panel