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32 J. Envtl. L. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/jenv32 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Environmental Law, 2020, 32, 1-24 doi: 10.1093/jel/eqz022 Advance Access Publication Date: 31 August 2019 Original article 'We Want Experts': Fracking and the Case of Expert Excess Joanne Hawkins * ABSTRACT The assumption that the democratisation of environmental law is central to ensuring the legitimacy of decisions permeates the literature. Using an empirically grounded counter narrative, this article confronts and contests that assumption. It argues that in the context of shale gas/fracking, public understanding positions expertise not as an obstacle to legitimacy, but rather as a foundational factor. This involves a role in which experts fulfil a publicly delegated role, the delineation of which warrants a form of par- ticipation that repositions its purpose and value. However, this conceptualisation of an expert's role, and the type of participation required, demonstrates a fundamental public misunderstanding about what experts can deliver: 'expert excess'. This article argues that we, as scholars, need to reflect upon: (1) the weight given to empirical perceptions of legitimacy and participation when developing theoretical models; (2) why there is such a misconception around what experts can deliver in decision-making. KEYWORDS: Legitimacy, participation, decision-making, expertise, fracking 1. INTRODUCTION The assumption that the democratisation of environmental law is central to ensuring the legitimacy of decisions permeates the literature. Yet the empirically grounded counter nar- rative, from the shale gas context, presented here confronts and contests that assumption. We want experts. We want people who know about these things. I'm only a lay person. I'm a farmer. I've dealt with the land all my life, but we want people who know what's happening 2 miles down and there aren't many of those, are there?1 Shale gas developments in England have proved to be controversial. Attention first focused on the shale gas industry when, on the 1 April 2011, a seismic tremor of magnitude 2.3 affected residents close to the Preese Hall shale gas exploration site in Lancashire.2 This triggered a temporary moratorium on all hydraulic fracturing * Lecturer of Law, University of Leeds (j.hawkinsaleeds.ac.uk). 1 M1 Interview 16. 2 British Geological Survey, 'Blackpool Earthquake' (27 May 2011) <www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/research/ events/BlackpoolMay2011.html> accessed 3 July 2019. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. . 1

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