Sweden: business leaders call for new international crime of ecocide

Summary:

• In an open letter published by Aktuell Hallbarhet, and timed to coincide with the European Parliament voting through an updated environmental crime directive, six CEOs, including Jenny Rundbladh of pensions giant SPP, called for the establishment of an international crime of ecocide under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

• The executives, from companies SPP, Houdini, Icebug, Polarbröd, Svea Solar and Rejlers, made an explicit call to the Swedish business community to get behind the growing global initiative to criminalise the most severe harms to nature. 

• The company heads emphasised the positive impact a new standalone international crime of ecocide could have on business, as well as the planet, stating, ‘a law that criminalises the most serious destruction of the earth's living ecosystems would reduce the possibility of running companies at the expense of nature while paving the way for companies with solutions that are truly sustainable’ (translated). 

• Acknowledging the significance of the new EU environmental crime directive, and the inclusion of a provision to criminalise cases ‘comparable to ecocide’, the six CEOs called on Sweden’s government to go further and look beyond the European region to secure the inclusion of ecocide in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. 

• The open letter references the Ecocide Law Alliance, champions of the ecocide law movement in Sweden and beyond, formed in 2022 to bring together and mobilize forward-looking businesses that want to create conditions for fair competition within planetary boundaries and promote sustainable business.

Read the open letter published by Aktuell Hallbarhet here.