AN IN-PERSON EVENT IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.
A STOCKHOLM +50 ASSOCIATED EVENT
A recording of this event will be available shortly after and distributed across our usual platforms.
In person at:
ABF-huset, Sveavägen 41, 111 83 Stockholm.
Room: Z-salen (first floor).
Time:
09:00 - 10:30 (CEST, Stockholm)
Registration essential.
Here in Stockholm exactly 50 years ago, Swedish leader Olof Palme argued for an international law against ecocide to end impunity for large-scale environmental destruction. Today, we honour his legacy by focusing on the rapid global progress of exactly this initiative: recognition of a new international crime of ecocide.
Recent IPCC reports show how the crises of climate and biodiversity have deepened despite global efforts. Perhaps this should not be surprising, in the absence of a binding legal framework to prevent old destructive and often colonial practices (“business as usual”) from continuing - practices that threaten not only the environment and communities but peace and security as well.
Recognition of an international crime of ecocide (a fifth “crime against peace”) could be the powerful strategic tool that has been missing, creating the preventive guardrail needed to deter severe harms, strengthen existing laws, and help redirect policy and funds towards a safe and peaceful future on a healthy planet.
Could this be the global legal parameter we can no longer afford to do without?
Brief introductory intervention from:
Swedish Member of Parliament
Speakers:
Global Sustainability Analyst & Director of Media & Strategy, Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Mindahi Bastida
Elder & spokesperson, Otomi-Toltec nation
Human Rights Lawyer & member of the Youth Task Force Stockholm + 50
Environmental justice advocate, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation. (tbc)
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Stop Ecocide International
Environment & human rights lawyer
Closing remarks from:
Icelandic member of Parliament
Moderator:
Journalist, Inside Climate News
In association with:
Magnus Manhammar, Swedish MP
Magnus Manhammar is a member of the Swedish parliament for the Social democrat party and a member of the Environment and Agriculture committee. He is one of the parliamentarians that took the initiative to request a definition of ecocide as a crime. He is famous for is engagement in environmental and climate issues and is one of the politicians that has been involved in Sweden´s coming and world leading goals about reducing the climate emissions from consumption.
Owen Gaffney - Global Sustainability Analyst & Director of Media & Strategy, Stockholm Resilience Centre.
For almost two decades Gaffney has been involved in Earth system science research and communications. His work focuses on synthesising and assimilating knowledge on the state of the planet. He is interested in the Anthropocene, Earth system and social tipping points, governance, equality, technology and the changing flow of information in the world. Gaffney is a qualified journalist, filmmaker and writer and trained as an astronautic and aeronautic engineer.
Mindahi Bastida - Elder & spokesperson, Otomi-Toltec nation
Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz is Director of the Original Nations Program of the Fountain and until July 2020 was the Director of the Original Caretakers Program, Center for Earth Ethics, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (2017- ) and General Coordinator of the Otomi-Toltec Regional Council in Mexico, a caretaker of the philosophy and traditions of the Otomi-Toltec peoples, and has been an Otomi-Toltec Ritual Ceremony Officer since 1988. He is consultant with UNESCO around Sacred Sites and Biocultural issues and for other UN programs.
Dalia Fernanda Márquez Añez, Human Rights Lawyer & member of the Youth Task Force Stockholm + 50
Dalia Fernanda Márquez Añez is a lawyer from Venezuela passionate about defending Human Rights, promoting gender equality, and peacebuilding. Dalia is an environmentalist, a university professor and founder of the NGO “Juventud Unida en Acción”, an institution which is developing education and training programs to empower young people as agents of change in their community, empower women, promote the culture of peacebuilding, and developed social programs in vulnerable communities within the framework of the 2030 agenda.
Jojo Mehta - Co-Founder & Executive Director, Stop Ecocide International
Jojo Mehta co-founded Stop Ecocide in 2017, alongside legal pioneer the late Polly Higgins, to support making severe harm to nature an international crime. As key spokesperson and Executive Director of Stop Ecocide International, Jojo has overseen the remarkable growth of the global movement while coordinating legal developments, diplomatic traction and public narrative. She is also Chair of the charitable Stop Ecocide Foundation and convenor of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide chaired by Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow.
Nnimmo Bassey - Environmental justice advocate, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation
Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author and poet, who chaired Friends of the Earth International from 2008 through 2012 and was executive director of Environmental Rights Action for two decades. He was one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment in 2009. In 2010, Nnimmo Bassey was named a Laureate of the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2012, he was awarded the Rafto Prize.He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of York, UK, in 2019. He serves on the advisory board and is Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental think tank and advocacy organization.
Steven Donziger - Environment & human rights lawyer
Steven Donziger is an American Human Rights Lawyer known for his legal battles with Chevron, particularly the Lago Agrio oil field case in which he represented over 30,000 farmers and indigenous Ecuadorans in a class action case against Chevron related to environmental damage and health effects caused by oil drilling. The Ecuadoran courts awarded the plaintiffs $9.5 billion (equivalent to $11.4 billion in 2021) in damages, which led Chevron to withdraw its assets from Ecuador and launch legal action against Donziger in the US.
Donziger was put under house arrest in August 2019 as a result of this legal persecution, which has been severely condemned by Nobel laureates, human rights campaigners, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Having served the six month sentence Donzinger was finally released on 25 April 2022.
Andrés Ingi Jónsson is a Member of Parliament for the Pirate Party in Iceland.
During his five years in office, he has consistently been a champion of green politics. Most recently, Andrés put forward a parliamentary resolution urging the Icelandic government to propose adding ecocide to the ICC’s mandate. Although the resolution hasn’t gone through yet, it enjoys broad political support, with twelve members from four different parties co-signing it – out of a parliament with 63 members and eight political parties.
Moderator:
Katie Surma, Journalist, Inside Climate News
Katie Surma is a reporter at Inside Climate News focusing on international environmental law and justice. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. She also wrote for a number of publications and her stories have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times and The Associated Press, among others.