Ecocide - mass damage and destruction of nature

While most human interaction with the environment creates some level of impact, ecocide refers only to the very worst harms, usually on a major industrial scale or impacting a huge area.

Legal recognition of ecocide as a serious crime

Criminalisation of ecocide creates enforceable accountability for these key decision-makers, so that where there is a threat of severe and either widespread or long-term damage, the dangers will be better researched and taken very seriously. Appropriate safety protocols will be employed or alternative approaches developed in order to protect nature, climate and people, and in order to avoid criminal liability.

Scientific and on-the-ground knowledge

Detailed knowledge of risks to nature, climate and people in specific contexts is extensive, and readily available to decision-makers in policy and industry.

Route to justice for the severest environmental harms

Ecocide law provides a route to justice for the worst harms inflicted upon the living world in times of both peace and conflict, whenever and wherever they are committed.

For history of ecocide law and academic articles, see our sister site www.ecocidelaw.com

Some examples of large-scale destruction that ecocide law could address:

Destruction of endangered species or habitats

Mass Deforestation

Severe water and land contamination

Chemical disasters

Benefits of ecocide law

  • Top level decision-makers in government and industry will be far more careful and conscious about what they sign off, while investors and insurers will steer clear of projects likely to prove unsafe.

  • Naming the worst harms as crimes will help all environmental laws to be taken seriously.  With the enforceable underpinning of criminal law, multilateral environmental agreements (Paris, Kunming-Montreal) will become easier to adhere to.

  • Sustainability leaders will no longer struggle uphill while the less scrupulous pass damage and its costs on to nature, communities and governments. Meanwhile, having legal outer boundaries in place will stimulate research into healthier practices.

  • Criminal law draws moral lines. Ecocide law will help to create a healthy societal taboo around mass damage to nature. Such damage has serious real-world consequences; reflecting this in law will remind us of our dependence upon the living world around us and our responsibility towards it.  

International Criminal Court

While we wholeheartedly support ecocide legislation at national and regional levels, our work aims ultimately to support recognition of ecocide as a standalone crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

At present, the Statute lists four crimes: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and the Crime of Aggression. The Statute can be amended to include a fifth crime of Ecocide.

Putting the law in place

Ecocide laws are now being proposed and progressed in domestic and regional parliaments around the world, largely based on (or strongly influenced by) the Independent Expert Panel definition convened by our Foundation.  Exactly how these laws proceed and are adopted varies from one jurisdiction to another, but the legal direction of travel is clear.

A straightforward process

  • Once a proposal is on the table, all States Parties may contribute to the discussion in order to arrive at a final amendment text.  This process is open-ended, but historically has taken anything from 2 to 10+ years.

  • States Parties can then ratify (officially submit their agreement), and the ICC has jurisdiction over the crime in that country one year later.  Ratifying states will likely transpose the crime into their own penal codes.

    Beyond that, under universal jurisdiction principles, any ratifying nation may, on its own soil, arrest a non-national for ecocide committed elsewhere, as long as it considers the crime to be serious enough. 

  • Any state or group of states which has ratified (officially agreed to) the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) may propose an amendment.  There are currently 124 of these “States Parties”.

    [In December 2019 the Pacific ocean Republic of Vanuatu urged all states parties to consider adding a 5th crime of ecocide to the Statute.]

  • This requires consensus at an Assembly of States Parties, or, if a vote has to be taken, requires at least a 2/3 majority (currently 83/124).  All states have an equal vote.  Once the law is adopted into the Statute, the crime exists (even if it is not yet enforceable).  This gives it immediate moral power.