What role will environmental principles play post-Brexit?

One of the important issues concerning environmental law post-Brexit will be the future role of general environmental principles. While it is the government’s intention, in the interests of regulatory stability, to ‘roll over’ existing EU environmental law as far as possible after Brexit, this policy applies only to the actual substantive text of EU legislation and does not encompass the core environmental principles contained in the EU Treaty. Principles can serve a valuable purpose in bringing a degree of coherence to law and policy, as well as assisting in the direction of legal interpretation where there are ambiguities or new situations.