Ecocide Article 2
 

The meaning of ecocide is fully encapsulated in It the Greek oikos (home) and the Latin cadere (to kill). Ecocide is literally “killing our home” Criminalizing ecocide gives us the unprecedented chance to create a protective measure with legal teeth, a measure that could deter reckless governments, organizations and individuals from damaging the Living Earth. Just as important, we must encourage decision-makers and corporations to make dramatic shifts away from an unacceptable status quo that too often favours the destruction of nature for short-term profits. As ecocide becomes a legal reality, corporations, organizations and individuals would adapt, and quickly, re-examine the way they do business and make decisions with the well-being of the Living Earth in mind.

It would also offer considerable opportunities for new sustainable ventures. In the meantime, the pristine areas that ecocide targets such as forests, wetlands, and the rivers and oceans are precisely the places that have value far beyond mere extractive industries. Environmentally concerned individuals organizations in either the public or private sectors would much prefer ethical, sustainable, and long-term value creation that does not damage or exploit nature or humanity.

In recent years alone we have seen devastating examples of ecocide across the world. As a global community, we cannot simply wait for more warning signs before positive action is taken. In the midst of a global ecocide crisis we need to work together in order to deal with the crisis. Indeed, we must acknowledge that what we do to the Living Earth we also do to humanity.

 

Conviction for ecocide would require showing wilful disregard for the consequences of actions such as deforestation, reckless drilling and mining etc. This threshold implicates a number of global and corporate leaders through their complicity in helping to destroy the Living Earth. Ecocide shares its roots with other landmark concepts in international law, including genocide. Indeed, ecocide and genocide often go hand in hand. Around the globe, ecological destruction is also decimating indigenous communities.

 

"Many of the laws we have serve property and ownership. But imagine laws that have a higher moral authority. Laws that put people and the Living Earth first. Imagine laws that start from first ‘do no harm' and takes us to a place of safety." Polly Higgins.

 

Recently President Emmanuel Macron met with 150 randomly selected members of the citizens' assembly on climate in the Elysée Palace to give his response to the assembly’s proposals to tackle climate change. Foremost among these was the proposal, supported by 99.3 percent of the assembly that a new crime of ecocide be established in France. Macron stopped short of accepting the exact text proposed, but clearly endorsed the principle. Meanwhile, he specifically promised to champion, on behalf of France, ensuring that the term ‘ecocide’ is enshrined in international law so that people and states are made accountable before the International Criminal Court.

 

Recent times have seen an unprecedented surge in support for the criminalisation of ecocide, including from the Republics of Vanuatu and that of the Maldives, Belgium, France and the European Union. Outlawing ecocide would hold governments and corporations accountable for environmental negligence. Indeed there is hope for preserving a liveable Earth. Outlawing ecocide will help to safeguard the Living Earth – the common home of life on Earth.

 

For some time now we have the scientific evidence that the overuse of fossil fuels nether serves humanity, nor the Living Earth. To continue their use could be seen as tantamount to committing ecocide. In relation to catastrophic climate warming, it is crucial that we change our present course of action. Once we accept that we can create the legislative framework to bring about a rapid and smooth transition to more healthy natural environments.

 

Ecocide can, and often does lead to cultural damage and destruction; and the direct destruction of a territory can lead to cultural genocide. For example, destroying an indigenous peoples’ territory can critically undermine its culture, identity and way of life. Laws relating to ecocide would help to ensure that no one state, or indeed, a group of states, could justify putting humanity, and the natural world, at risk when the Living Earth its self is on the brink of an environmental and biological disaster.

 

Ecocide is the direct physical destruction of areas of the natural world which can, and does lead to the death of humans and other living beings. The real concern is that ecocide is not only a form of human self-destruction it is a manifestation of the disregard for the fact that without the natural world we would not exist.  A number of years ago the late international environmental lawyer Polly Higgins proposed to the UN Law Commission a law of Ecocide, making ecocide an international crime by 2020. Sadly, as far as I know, such a law has yet to become a reality.

 

Ecocide campaigners claim that laws against ecocide will end corporate immunity by holding individuals with corporate power to account for their destructive decisions. By recognising the crime of ecocide and that of the Earth’s ecological systems as subjects of law, we would recognise the principle of interdependence that binds us to the rest of life as a backbone of law, whereas today’s laws do not recognise anything other than human life in general.

 

How do we make ecocide a national and international crime?

 

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) lists four crimes:

• Genocide

• Crimes Against Humanity

• War Crimes

• Crimes of Aggression (recently added) 

The Statute can be amended to add a fifth crime: ECOCIDE. 

For Rachel Killean, a Senior Lecturer in Law, Queen's University, Belfast: “Unlike suing and fining corporations (who simply budget for this possibility), making ecocide a crime creates an arrest-able offence. It makes those individuals who are responsible for acts, or decisions that lead to severe environmental harm liable to criminal prosecution”.

An ecocide law could allow victims to be financially compensated for things like the pollution of rivers used for fishing or the destruction of spiritually significant land. For example, the Saramaka Indigenous community in Suriname for the loss of spiritual connections to their territory, marred by logging. Reparations could even be used to provide access to clean water, food and environmentally sustainable income for local peoples. In the context of ecocide, guarantees of non-repetition might involve training local people in environmental protection, or strengthening weak environmental regulations.

However, these broader goals would require government or corporate support to achieve and would need to be linked to the crimes of the convicted person. But getting the ICC involved in the struggle for ecological justice still allows us to treat ecocide as the life-altering, extraordinarily destructive crime it is. When faced with a climate crisis etc., we must use all the means in our arsenal – including law – to protect and repair the natural world.

Currently, reparations cannot be awarded to non-human beings like animals, or to the natural world itself. This means that currently, any reparations awarded for ecocide would have to be to humans and human organisations. Nevertheless, the ability to award reparations could provide victims of ecocide with the opportunity to restore, or memorialise, what they’ve lost – as well as potentially helping to prevent future environmental destruction. The ICC could also explore symbolic reparations. This could involve the convicted person publicly apologising and acknowledging the suffering they’ve caused. This might not seem as valuable as providing money or restorative projects to victims. However, it could help acknowledge the reality of what has been lost and establish ecocide as a serious crime on the world stage.

Taking inspiration from environmental peace building efforts around the world, symbolic reparations could include creating restorative memorial parks, or peace parks. These could be used by suffering communities as memorials, while supporting local conservation work. Going further, the ICC might consider awarding even more transformative reparations that challenge social inequality. These could be designed to allow marginalised communities more say in managing natural resources.

Meaningful environmental restoration in the aftermath of ecocide requires a whole host of participants, including national governments and corporations, who may not be willing to cooperate. And since the ICC doesn’t hold jurisdiction over corporations, it can’t demand broader changes in corporate practices that may be causing environmental harm.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that endless growth and the accumulation of wealth involve an exploitation of humans and resources that is destroying the living planet. Today, everything is telling us that we cannot go on making all the bad decisions that have been made in the name of progress. Being driven – working harder, making more and more money – is not a virtue, or some kind of ethical principle to adhere to, but a sure sign of greed, panic and decay.

(See)  Stop Ecocide campaign