Ecocide as international crime

law. The French citizens’ assembly, a group of people randomly selected to guide the country’s climate policy in accord with the Paris Agreement on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for health benefits, voted to make ecocide a crime.

National ecocide laws

So far, 10 countries have national ecocide laws. Vietnam, which leads ecocide advocates among developing countries, enacted its law in 1990, followed by Kazakhstan and Moldova. French lawmakers are working on legislation to make ecocide an offense punishable by fines and imprisonment. Vanuatu and Maldives, aware that cyclones which devastated their islands for years are expected to intensify as the globe continues to warm, have campaigned for quite some time to make ecocide an international crime.

The Vatican’s Pope Francis describes ecocide as the “massive contamination of air, land and water or any action capable of producing an ecological disaster” and has proposed making it a sin for Catholics. Be it known that the world’s religions, major or otherwise, are very protective of natural resources and the environment.

Actually, four international crimes could be brought before the ICC. These are genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. Of the four, some legal minds point out that while ecocide could be accommodated under war crimes, the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, requires an international attack that causes “independent, long term and severe damage to the environment,” which would be clearly excessive. Even if environmental destruction was relegated to a wartime offense, it has never been enforced.

Corporate and state responsibility is also excluded under the Rome Statute. Meaning, corporations and states that cause water and air pollution or participate in illegal deforestation and cause oil spills during peacetime cannot be prosecuted for their environmental damage. Clearly, ICC crimes do not place any legal restrictions on harms that occur during times of peace.

The ICCs Rome Statute further defines crimes against humanity as “acts committed as part of a widespread systematic attack directed against any civilian population.” For many, the definition is too narrow to include ecocide as triable by the ICC.

Legal definition

By the end of 2020, while the world was focused on the coronavirus pandemic, a panel of international law experts met to draw up a legal definition of ecocide for international acceptance. After all, with no let-up in environmental catastrophes everywhere around the world, ecocide will prove that in the long term, it is infinitely more harmful to human civilization than the coronavirus.

In that regard, would ecocide defined as “acts or omission committed during peacetime or war by governments or by any corporate or other entity and the senior responsible persons thereat which cause widespread or long term ecological, climate or cultural loss or damage to or destruction of ecosystems and territories that severely diminishes the inhabitants’ peaceful enjoyment of these ecosystems and territories,” suffice or be acceptable so as to clearly identify liability for ecocide? Significantly, the definition means political leaders and corporate executives could face charges and imprisonment for “ecocidal” acts.

The proposed definition would also enrich international environmental law and perhaps hasten the 30-year-old proposal to create an International Environmental Court and expand the right to a healthy environment to include a right to freedom from ecocide which substantially threatens life itself. This will strengthen response to global challenges of the 21st century, i.e., environmental crimes related to increasing biodiversity loss and accelerating climate breakdowns threatening peace, security, health and well-being of the world.

After all, international law has been used to protect the rights of investors overseas. It is time for binding legal rules to protect the planet itself and all living entities in it and humanity’s future. But first, ecocide should be officially seen as an international crime and recognized and granted the full weight of international law.