"We are delaying while the planet burns"

An excellent debate took place this week in the UK’s House of Lords following submission of a revised amendment to the Environment Bill by Baroness (Natalie) Bennett.

Environmental bill - Amendment 126:

Ecocide

(1) It is an objective of Her Majesty’s Government to support the negotiation of an amendment to the Statute of the International Criminal Court, done at Rome on 17th July 1998, to establish a crime of ecocide.

(2) In pursuance of subsection (1), a relevant Minister of the Crown must promote discussion of such an amendment, either independently or jointly with other sovereign states, within the Working Group on Amendments of the International Criminal Court within 12 months of this Act being passed.

(3) In this section “ecocide” refers to unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts."

The government response, via Minister for Environment and the Pacific Lord (Zac) Goldsmith, repeated its lukewarm position of earlier in the summer: the UK was more interested in the ICC being better able to enforce existing crimes than in supporting new ones. While this meant the amendment did not go through, support in the House was significant:

Baroness Boycott: “the single most important thing about this initiative is that it’s part of that broader process of changing public consciousness, recognising that we are in a relationship with our environment.”

Baroness Whitaker: “we have very good diplomats, whose job is to build consensus. They should be tasked to make a start on this case. We need to make a good showing at Glasgow, do we not?”

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd: “this must be an opportunity for global Britain to show leadership on one of the most serious criminal offences of our time. We can do it, and we should not fail.”

Baroness Hayman of Ullock: “the noble Baroness explained in the introduction to her amendment, unlike her amendment in Committee, she is calling for the Government to promote discussion of this. This seems to me to be a thoroughly reasonable request.”

Baroness Bennett expressed her disappointment with the government’s response: “we really are delaying while the planet burns.”