excellent women
LEGAL PIONEER POLLY HIGGINS DEVOTED HERSELF TO DEFENDING HER MOST IMPORTANT CLIENT: THE EARTH
Quitting a high-paying job as a barrister to pursue justice for the environment: now that’s dedication. But this was just the tip of the melting iceberg for Polly Higgins – she also sold her house to fund her efforts to create a legal duty of care for the planet. Little wonder then that this remarkable woman became known as the Earth’s Lawyer.
Polly was on a mission to criminalise mass ecological damage and destruction (ecocide) for which there is currently no effective deterrent – only ‘soft laws’ that let the politicians and chief executives responsible off the hook. Polly reasoned that, if the individuals can end up in the International Criminal Court and be sentenced, they’re likely to act with greater care, and corporate and state responsibility for the environment would result.
The hugely charismatic Scot developed an appreciation of landscape and nature while growing up near Loch Lomond. Polly was called to the English Bar in 1998 and specialised in employment and corporate law. Ten years later, she left her legal practice as a court advocate and devoted herself to what would become her single most important client: the Earth. She wrote three books including Eradicating Ecocide, and travelled around the world to explain the term, literally spreading the word.
Part of Polly’s appeal was her plain speaking. “Why is it that if we have a universal declaration of human rights, we
don’t have the equivalent for the Earth?” she said to herself. She worked with foreign governments in her efforts to create the ‘missing law’ of ecocide internationally, setting it out to be the fifth crime against peace, drawing parallels between killing individuals ( homicide) and communities ( genocide) and the destruction of the natural world (ecocide).
Polly argued that the document setting out international crimes (The Rome Statute) should be amended to include ecocide: “The extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.” In 2010, she submitted a draft proposal of the Ecocide law to the United Nations. Once it has the support of two thirds of the member states, ecocide will become an international criminal law.
Earlier this year, Polly was diagnosed with cancer and given weeks to live. She died in April. Her final wish was for more people to sign up as ‘Earth Protectors’ and help crowd-fund the campaign. Visit stopecocide.earth to sign up. Want to nominate a little-known excellent woman? Email thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk.
“If we have a universal declaration of human rights, why don’t we have the equivalent for the Earth?”