The independent expert panel on the legal definition of ‘ecocide’ defines this term as “cruel and illegal acts committed with the knowledge that there is a significant likelihood of serious, widespread or long-term damage to the environment caused by those acts.” The criminalization of ecocide, i.e. its inclusion in the legal framework for environment and climate contributes to the fight for climate justice, say Stop Ecocide International. The term ‘ecocide’ has been part of the international legal vocabulary since 1970, but it still does not appear in the Rome Statute, on the basis of which the International Criminal Court in The Hague was established and operates. Thus, ecocide is still not criminalized at the international level, although several countries in the world are already making efforts to include it as a crime in their criminal codes, either as such or through the recognition of the rights of nature.
The criminalization of ecocide – what does it really mean?
In the Merriam Webster dictionary ‘ecocide’ is defined as “the destruction of large areas of the environment as a result of human activity.” The introduction of this term as a crime in the Criminal Code both nationally and internationally is the first significant step towards providing a mechanism and process for corporate and government decision-making structures and individuals to bear responsibility for environmental damages and abuses of the environment, ecosystems and communities that result from their decisions and actions. These damages include: massive deforestation, pollution of soil, surface and underground water, spills of oil, methane, and other fossil gases and fuels,and destruction of ecosystems, but are not limited to these.
A growing movement to protect women, non-binary people and girls is increasingly denouncing violence against them, i.e. ‘femicide’, and drawing parallels between femicide and ecocide: “Femicide is directly linked to ecocide…there needs to be greater awareness that the extractive industries that impacting the climate and destroying our territories, is intertwined with violence against our women and girls,” said activist Deli Nickal from the Wet’suwet’en Indigenous Territory affected by the fossil gas industry.
According to researcher and writer George Monbiot , criminalizing ecocide would create a system not only of criminal liability for corporate CEOs and government leaders for the harm they inflict on the planet and people through their actions, but also “a legal duty of care for life on Earth.” He says that prosecuting the perpetrators of ecocide would radically change the disproportionate power that large corporations (especially fossil fuels) and governments (especially global powers) have amassed with the current extractive economic system driven by profit accumulation. at any cost. According to Monbiot, the criminalization of ecocide would “force them to ask themselves: ‘Am I going to end up in the International Criminal Court for this?’, and that would make the difference between a planet suitable or uninhabitable” for all of us.
History
The term ‘ecocide’ first came into use at the initiative of biologist Arthur Galston at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington in 1970, where he proposed that damage to the environment be prohibited by law. He launched this initiative because of the perceived environmental consequences of the herbicide used by the US military in Vietnam. Two years later, this initiative was supported at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment of the United Nations (UN) , where the Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, the Indian Prime Minister and prominent leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, Indira Gandhi, and the leader of the Chinese delegation, Mr. Tang Ke , condemn the actions during the Vietnam War calling them ecocide and war crimes against civilians. Here they call for ecocide to become an international crime and as a result of this, the Working Group on crimes against the Environment was formed at the conference, which in 1973 already submitted a draft of the International Convention on Ecocide as a crime to the UN. The first official definition of ‘ecocide’ comes from a paper by Professor Richard Falk published by the Revue Belge de Droit International.
After a long hiatus in the use of the term ‘ecocide’, it returned to the international legal scene after 1990 when Vietnam became the first country to include it as a crime in national legislation, stating that “those who will commit acts of genocide or act of ecocide or destroy the environment, will be punished with imprisonment from ten to twenty years, life imprisonment or death penalty” in Article 278 of the Criminal Code. This was followed in 1991 by the inclusion of Article 26 in the International Law Commission’s draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, which condemned “intentional damage to the environment.” However, after lobbying by imperialist powers such as the Netherlands, France and Great Britain , in 1996 the International Law Commission removed environmental crimes from the draft Code and reduced the Rome Statute to only four of the planned five crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression, removing ecocide in the latest stage of drafting the Code that is being followed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Stop Ecocide and the Independent Expert Panel on the Legal Definition of Ecocide
The next significant effort to establish ecocide as an international crime was made only in 2012 at the International Conference on Environmental Crime , relying on studies prepared by two UN bodies: the Environment Program (UNEP) and the Interregional Research Institute on Crime and Justice (UNICRI). The following year, the International Criminal Court published a policy document that takes ecocide into account when assessing the scope of the crimes listed in the Rome Statute. But the real turning point in advocating for ecocide to become a recognized international crime was the founding of the Stop Ecocide International campaign in 2017 by legal experts Polly Huggins and Jojo Mehta who are devoting their lives to the cause of environmental justice and fueling a global movement in this direction that now includes thousands of individuals, organizations, groups and businesses. In 2020, the Stop Ecocide Foundation is convening the Independent Expert Panel on the Legal Definition of Ecocide consisting of 12 legal experts with extensive experience in environmental, climate and criminal law. The work of this expert panel is assisted by a number of legal experts around the globe, as well as through public consultations of hundreds of people with diverse “legal, economic, political, youth, religious and indigenous perspectives from around the world.”
Current state
The main objective of the work of the Independent Expert Panel is the preparation of a draft amendment to the Rome Statute with a legal definition of ecocide in order to include it under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was submitted in June 2021. At the beginning of the year, there were also frequent talks about the recognition of ecocide at the level of the European Union. Also, the Scientific Journal of Genocide Research publishes a special issue with research showing the links between genocide and ecocide.
Existing laws and initiated initiatives
Ecocide laws already exist in several national jurisdictions , namely: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Armenia, but 2021 is actually the year that efforts to criminalize ecocide come to fruition. fruit. Recently, the Belgian Parliament requested that ecocide be introduced as a criminal offense in international law, and the European Parliament refers to two key investigations (the Committee on Legal Affairs on the responsibility of companies for causing environmental damage and the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the effects of climate change on human rights and the role of environmental defenders ) to vote in favor of recognizing ecocide at the level of the European Union. In 2021, France criminalizes ecocide in the Climate and Resilience Act, Chile enshrines it in the Constitution , and Great Britain begins considering an amendment to the Environment Act to include ecocide in legislation.
The movement to recognize the Rights of Nature is also growing louder and more and more countries are recognizing the Rights of Nature in their constitutions and legal frameworks. This movement advocates “for ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and mountains to have legal rights in the same, or at least similar, way as people” in order to ensure their protection by law . We also see an initiative in this direction by the European Parliament, which in 2021 publishes the study on the recognition of the rights of nature in the European context.
A significant, inspiring historic victory in the direction of holding corporations accountable for environmental damage and, more specifically, their contribution to climate collapse, is the legal victory of Friends of the Earth Netherlands in the case against the oil giant Shell, where a Dutch court ruled in contribution to humanity and ecosystems and orders Shell to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the operation of this fossil fuel corporation.
Challenges
The criminalization of ecocide is not a process without challenges . Some of those seen are:
- The challenge is that international law against ecocide would probably only apply to individuals, but not to companies as legal entities.
- The enforcement of domestic ecocide statutes can result in ‘victims’ in terms of the economy, making many states hesitant to do anything towards recognizing it despite the great damage done to ecosystems and thus the lives of communities in particular near the damaged environment.
- The fact that many states have not yet ratified the Rome Statute would include ecocide as a crime, and thus these states would not be bound by the terms of the Statute.
Region – condition and potential
The Balkan region, although a region of strong movements against the causes of damage to the environment and ecosystems, especially from the extractive industry for ore , has not yet won the criminalization of ecocide as such in any of the countries in the region. But the fact that citizens in the countries of the region are more and more vocal and more concerned about the health of the ecosystems and their well-being related to this, is very hopeful. There is great potential in the work of CPIA in North Macedonia and their initiative to propose that ecocide be a crime in the new Criminal Code. The potential that this initiative has to work hand in hand with affected communities across the country, to focus the voices of those most affected by environmental injustices, but also to join the international movement to Stop Ecocide and fight for the same is especially hopeful on a global level.
Author
Simona Getova
Simona is a PhD student in the field of political ecology at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. She is an organizer for climate and social justice and works at the intersections of political education, governance and collective action for socially just and ecologically healthy communities in the Balkans and beyond. Simona is the co-founder of The Climate Herald and Kolektiv Z. Twitter: @SimonaGetova