He went on to develop an expertise in a range of areas of public law including writings on planning and local government. In his work as a solicitor in Scotland and in England, he moved into the emerging area of corporate social responsibility and its role in environmental law. He was a major force behind the spread of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) approaches through his leading the team which produced the hugely influential 2005 Freshfields Report for the United Nations on the interpretation of the law with relation to investors. While working as a solicitor he continued to publish.

His books included Climate Change: A Guide to Carbon Law and Practice in 2008. He was named by former US Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, as one of the six most influential global figures in the development of sustainable finance. Paul was particularly exercised about “greenwashing” by large law firms. He noted how they really saw their ESG practices as recruitment tools, promoted in glossy material and through webinars and their websites. In large part, though, firms failed to “walk the walk” on diversity, wellbeing, sustainability and transparency, a concern which he reiterated in his most recent contributions at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2022. He had a long association with the United Nations and for 20 years acted as special legal counsel and special adviser to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative. He most recently held the position of global head of climate change and ESG transition at Hong Kong-based law firm Ben McQuae & C0.

Paul was born in Coatbridge to Alec, a police officer, and Moira who headed up HR for the House of Fraser. He was educated at Coatbridge High and Strathclyde University. There he was involved in setting up the first Strathclyde Legal Clinic whilst graduating at the top of his year in 1975. He qualified as a solicitor with the innovative Glasgow firm, Bird Semple. Always fascinated by how laws came into being, he secured a number of scholarships to undertake postgraduate research. He opted for Glasgow University and commenced work on the origins of the Rent Acts. During this time he started writing influential scholarly articles on how the private rented sector was operating. Attracted to academe, he was appointed to a lectureship at Dundee University Law Faculty in 1979. There he broadened his interests to cover planning law and regulation and more books flowed. Despite early promotion to a senior lectureship in 1987 and with the promise of a glittering academic career in prospect, he was lured back into the legal profession.

He was soon made a partner and head of planning and environmental law at Brodies from 1989 and 1992 along with continuing pro bono work on homelessness law as the co-author of the leading British text in the field. Thereafter, he moved to England to become a partner in the “magic circle” firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer between 1992 and 2006. During this time he consolidated his reputation as a major figure in the world of environmental law. He was special legal adviser at the United Nations Net Zero Insurance Alliance and made telling contributions to Cop26 in 2022.

He always retained an input to legal education and research and was senior research fellow at the London School of Economics from 2007 to 2015 as well as becoming a visiting professor at the University of Aberdeen and honorary professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Law. His latest essay on the vexed question of retrospective legislation is a tour de force centred on the interpretation of the Rent Acts in the 1920s. Its appears in a Festschrift for his former head of school at Dundee University, Professor Ian Willock. A book based on Paul’s doctoral research is due to be published this year by Edinburgh University Press.

Things might well have been very different had Paul not become so devoted to law and its ethical practice. As a talented young footballer he signed at the age of 17 for Dunfermline Athletic. His father, however, counselled him that a footballer’s career could be ended at an early age by an injury. Although he later played for Clyde and finally for Stonehouse Violet in the Scottish Junior Cup Final of 1978, the lure of the law proved irresistible. Given Paul’s stellar legal career of 50 years this proved to be sound advice. However, despite his stature as an influential figure in the legal field, friends and acquaintances suspect that Paul himself rated not his legal prowess and status but the goal he scored against Rangers as his greatest achievement.

Paul was a convivial and generous host. Friends and relatives greatly enjoyed the weddings and ceilidhs he hosted at the Caledonian Club in London and parties at his home and at Gleneagles. He retained his sense of humour to the last. He willingly gave his time and support to younger colleagues and was a valued mentor on countless occasions. He quietly supported many charities including Drumchapel Boys Club for whom he had played as a youth. He also provided a bursary to the School of Law at the University of Strathclyde. He did, however, know personal tragedy with the death of his first wife and baby son Paul. He took great joy in his surviving children, Carla and Katherine and his grandchildren Poppy, William and Otis to whom he was a devoted father and adored granddad.

Professor Peter Robson

Paul Quayle Watchman born Coatbridge 17 November 1952, died Cambridge 2 July 2023