Ecocide bill introduced in Peruvian parliament

Written By Robin Gairdner

Summary:

  • Congressman Américo Gonza, a member of the Perú Libre party and Chair of the Peruvian parliamentary Justice Committee, has tabled a bill proposing the amendment of Peru’s penal code to include the crime of ecocide.

  • The proposed amendment, Article 305-A, co-authored by Gonza and several parliamentary colleagues, emulates the three key threshold criteria for ecocide found in the Stop Ecocide Foundation Expert Panel’s definition, namely: severe, widespread and long-term damage to the environment. 

  • The bill, which notes that the Independent Expert Panel’s consensus definition of ecocide is ‘widely accepted at the international level’, proposes a custodial sentence for the crime of between seven and twenty years. 


A copy of the proposed ecocide bill can be found here.

Robin Gairdner
Previous

ICC Deputy Prosecutor: ‘if Rome Statute was drafted today, would it include ecocide as a separate international crime?’
Next

Canada: Members of Parliament express cross-party support for international crime of “ecocide”