Richard Brabazon Macrory, CBE, Hon KC (born 30 March 1950) is Emeritus Professor of environmental law at University College London.
He was educated at Westminster School, and read jurisprudence at Christ Church, Oxford, obtaining a BA in 1971 (MA 1976).
Most of his practice involved providing advice or written opinions, but he was junior counsel in a number of significant British environmental cases: R v Environment Agency ex parte Dockgrange [1997) Env.
LR 415 (High Court, transhipment of waste) British Waterways Board v Severn Trent (2001) 3 WLR 613 (Court of Appeal, water law) R ex parte National Grid Gas v Environment Agency (2007) UKHL 30 (House of Lords, contaminated land) In 2012, Chambers and Partners Legal Guide noted, "As a pre-eminent and pioneering academic in environmental law, Macrory remains a leading authority on the subject in both a domestic and international context.
In 2014 Oxford University Press established the annual Macrory prize for the most thought-provoking and innovative article published in the Journal each year.
He was a specialist advisor in environmental law to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment on seven inquiries between 1989 and 1992 (contaminated land, Northern Ireland, beaches, European Environmental Agency, eco-labelling, EEC landfill directive, UK Environmental Agency), and subsequently a specialist advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Environment, Transport, and the Regions on its inquiries into eco-products, and into waste.
Macrory was the Hon President of the National Society for Clean Air between 2004 and 2005, and was Standing Counsel to the Council for the Protection of Rural England for eleven years between 1981-1992.
In 2002, Macrory was commissioned by the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs to study the possible introduction of civil penalties for breaches of environmental law.
The report argued that in addition to these existing sanctions, environmental regulators should also be able to impose civil penalties of the sort widely used in Germany and the United States.
These including acting transparently and avoiding perverse incentives (such as internal targets or financial rewards for success) which might distort choices.
In 2004 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management, and in 2007 nominated a Patron of the UK Environmental Law Association.
He appeared as an extra in a number of Merchant Ivory films, including The Golden Bowl (2000), The Mystic Masseur (2001) and The White Countess (2005).
Between 1988 and 2004, he was chairman of Merchant Ivory Productions Ltd.[6] Macrory and Nick Young invented a family board game called Man-Eater!
[7][8] Nick Young (1949–81) was a former school friend and they formed a company Footloose Productions Ltd to produce and market the game.
Because the swimmers had detachable legs which could be eaten by the shark, Robin Young in the Times said that Man-eater 'easily carries away the title of Worst Taste Game of the Year'.