‘Historic moment’: legal experts present new definition of ecocide Climate News

After six months of deliberation, an international group of lawyers has unveiled a new legal definition of “ecocide,” which, if taken, would put environmental destruction on par with war crimes – paving the way for prosecuting world leaders and corporate leaders for their worst attacks on nature.

The expert group published the basic text of the bill on Tuesday, explaining the ecocide as “due to illegal or unintentional actions, there is a high risk of serious, widespread or long-term damage to the environment caused by these facts.” .

Its authors want to acknowledge the members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and demand responsibility for major pollutants in order to stop the indefinite destruction of the world’s ecosystems.

“It’s a matter of survival for our planet,” said Dior Fall Sow, a UN lawyer and former prosecutor who headed the table.

The bill calls for an ecocidal action to involve “reckless negligence,” which results in “serious changes, disruptions or damage to any element of the environment”. Another section says that such damage would “extend beyond a limited geographical area, crossing state borders or [be] it is affected by an entire ecosystem or species or by a large number of humans ”.

This environmental effect would be “irreversible” or could not be resolved naturally “within a reasonable period of time.” Finally, in order to prosecute the suspects in the ecocide, the proposed law states that the crime can be committed anywhere, from the Earth’s biosphere and to space.

“This is a historic moment,” said Jojo Mehta, president of the Stop Ecocide Foundation, who has commissioned an international group of lawyers. “This team of experts has been the right answer as the growing desire to provide real answers to the climate and ecological crisis.”

‘It’s never too late’

Publishing the basic text of the law is just the first step.

Any of the 123 member states of the ICC can propose to amend the Charter of the Court, known as the Rome Statute. Following this, the annual meeting of the court will be held to vote on whether it can be considered for future approval of the amendment.

To achieve this, Member States must obtain a two-thirds majority to approve the Bill in the Rome Statute, so that each member can ratify and enforce it in its national jurisdiction.

At that point, the massacre would coincide with genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and assault crimes as the so-called “fifth crime” that can be tried at the ICC.

Mehta hopes that this can be achieved in four or five years. “This is a crucial decade for action,” he said.

“It simply came to our notice then. We still have nine years left in this decade. That’s a lot of time to act. “

Considering the definition of the law, the jury, made up of 12 famous lawyers from countries like Bangladesh, Chile, Norway, Samoa, Senegal and the United States, sought a balance between “wanting to go far and being pragmatic”. Sands, panelist.

“We wanted to come up with a text that states can think of, and the initial reaction from those states that we have shared has been incredibly positive,” added Sands, who teaches law at University College London. “We’ve come up with a definition that we think might work, but it’s ultimately up to the states to decide. And that’s a matter of political will.”

At this point, corporations that cause ecological destruction through deforestation, mining, oil drilling, or other industrial-scale companies typically face only economic sanctions, leaving chief executives and other powerful decision-makers to face criminal prosecution.

The Ecocide campaign challenges this by threatening to position itself among the war criminals and thus offering a strong deterrent.

“[People who commit genocide] they are not so concerned as their CEO, “Mehta said.” Corporate credibility, investor confidence, stock prices, etc. all depend on popularity. So the key to making decisions in a company that is thinking alongside war criminals is not at all attractive. “

Although approval of the bill is not guaranteed, publication is a significant milestone in the fight to criminalize the most serious ecological offenses and to put them in line with the atrocities of the international situation.

The origin of the campaign dates back to 1970, when a U.S. botanist used “ecocide” to describe the nightmare of the U.S. military’s decision to release powerful herbicides such as Agent Orange, such as Agent Orange, in the Vietnam War, causing cancer, birth. defects and environmental devastation. Since then, popes Francis and Greta Thunberg, as well as political leaders in Belgium, Finland, France and Luxembourg, have begun calling for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime.

The group of experts behind this new bill was formed in late 2020, 75 years after the “genocide” took place, and “crimes against humanity” were used to prosecute Nazi leaders in the Nuremberg trials.

Its members hope that the publication could lead to a pioneering similar change in justice and responsibility, as humanity tackles the catastrophic consequences of biodiversity sinking and a warming climate.

“You have moments where significant things happen in international law,” Sands said. “I wonder if it might be a moment like that.”