NEW YORK, 09 SEPTEMBER 2024: The crime of ecocide was formally introduced for consideration by member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) —an event that represents a major step forward in the global effort to enshrine mass environmental destruction as a crime under international law.

The Global Commons Survey 2024, conducted by Ipsos UK and commissioned by Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance (GCA), found that 72% of people across G20 countries agree that the most severe forms of environmental harm—increasingly known as Ecocide —- should be a crime. 

A new report by France’s international development financing agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), highlights the role that ecocide law would play in “ensuring the planet’s habitability”.

The People’s Pact for the Future, a set of recommendations created through extensive consultations with global civil society to guide the United Nations in tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, has proposed that ecocide be criminalised as a standalone offence under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

On 1 July 2024, Italy’s Green and Left Alliance proposed a bill to criminalise "ecocide," based on the Independent Expert Panel’s 2021 definition. The bill must undergo parliamentary discussion, committee review, voting in both houses, and receive presidential approval to become law.

Two new ecocide bills have been introduced in Peru's parliament by members of the Perú Libre and Cambio Democrático parties, adding to a previous submission and signalling a concerted move towards amending the penal code to include ecocide, based on the Independent Expert Panel’s consensus definition formulated in 2021.

On 17 June, the governing board of the largest political party in Finland’s ruling coalition government, the National Coalition Party, officially expressed support for ecocide as an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), representing a global fellowship of 352 churches and 580 million Christians, has issued a powerful statement which calls on the world’s churches and governments to support ecocide legislation and emphasises the role of biodiversity in preserving human well-being and ensuring the planet's resilience to climate impacts.

At a press conference on 30th May, MPs from three of Canada’s federal political parties affirmed their support for making ecocide a crime at the International Criminal Court.

In a speech given at the "Promise of International Law in the Face of Ecological Crises" conference in Amsterdam, organised by the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk reaffirmed his support for bringing the crime of ecocide within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In the wide ranging speech, the High Commissioner called for environmental crimes to be considered on a par with the human impacts of other atrocities and for states to employ criminal law ’more expansively’ as a tool to align their environmental laws and policies with their human rights obligations.

On 15 May 2024, the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) voted on a total of six motions, from four political parties, that contain proposals to make ecocide prohibited under international law within the framework of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The vote in parliament was close - 153 MPs voting in line with the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recommendations (i.e. against the motions) and 150 voting in favour.

In a speech given on 27 May at the "Promise of International Law in the Face of Ecological Crises" conference in Amsterdam, organised by the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s Deputy Prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, made a wide-ranging case for updating and adapting the existing international criminal law framework, including Rome Statute, to better protect the environment. 

Expanding on her theme of the Rome Statute being "a reflection of the legal imagination" of the time in which it was created, Khan remarked, "I wonder, if the Rome Statute was being drafted today, what would it look like? Would it include ecocide as a separate international crime?"

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has released a report providing an overview of the global state of ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’ in 2023.

Referencing that only a handful of states have criminalised ecocide to date, the Secretary-General highlights the “need to establish a crime of ecocide at the international level” (para 45). 

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 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.

On April 18, 2024, the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe dopted Resolution 2546 which contains recommendations aimed at addressing critical issues related to ocean health in the context of the climate crisis, including a call on member and non-member States of the Council of Europe to promote the codification of the term "ecocide" at national, regional and international levels.

In run-up to elections, Flemish and Walloon political parties have been surveyed on a host of issues. The survey, conducted by a coalition of Belgian environmental organisations, included a question about support for amending the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include a new crime of ecocide.

The European Council has formally adopted a new environmental crime directive, which includes provision to criminalise cases ‘comparable to ecocide’.

The city of Utrecht, represented by Alderman Linda Voortman, signed the Stop Ecocide NL Manifesto, which calls upon the Dutch government to support the recognition of ecocide as a crime at the international, European, and national levels.

The Joint Global Statement of Major Groups and Stakeholders (Joint Global Statement), presented at the Sixth United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-6), stated that working 'towards the universal recognition of ecocide as an international crime' would serve as a 'powerful deterrent' against the most severe environmental harms.

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. 

On February 20, 2024, a group of Finnish Green MPs, including former Minister of the Interior Maria Ohisalo, submitted a formal written question to the government, inquiring about the administration's intentions to promote the establishment of a new standalone international crime of ecocide via the International Criminal Court.

Prominent members of the international legal community, politicians, academics, businesses and NGOs have responded to a public consultation held by the office of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, calling for a new crime of ecocide to be introduced into the Rome Statute.

Launched at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi, the Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth charter, has been drafted by leading Islamic eco-theologians and practitioners from around the world. The charter creates a comprehensive Islamic framework on ecological and moral responsibility, urging collective action for the protection of our planet and states: “The enormity of the crime of ecocide – the extirpation of entire ecosystems, communities of species, including our own – can best be appreciated by considering the horrors of genocide – the extirpation of ethnicities and cultures. […] This kind of corruption in the Earth has yet to be recognised, litigated, and penalised in national and international legislation.”

The European Parliament has today voted through a new environmental crime directive, which includes provision to criminalise cases ‘comparable to ecocide’. The European Parliament, along with the Parliament’s rapporteur on the directive, Netherlands MEP Antonius Manders, have been at the centre of efforts to secure new EU legislation aimed at preventing and punishing the most severe environmental harms since it announced its support for the inclusion of “ecocide” in the new directive in March 2023. To complete its legislative journey, the new directive will be subject to a vote by the European Council, scheduled to take place March 2024.

Belgium’s Federal Parliament has today voted in favour of a new penal code for the country, which, for the first time in Europe, includes recognition of the crime of ecocide at both the national and international levels. Nationally, the new crime of ecocide, aimed at preventing and punishing the most severe cases of environmentaldegradation, such as extensive oil spills, will apply to individuals in the highest positions of decision-making power and to corporations.

A new report, ‘The Environmental Compact for Ukraine’, has been published by the country’s High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War. The report highlights the presence of the crime of “ecocide” in Ukraine’s penal code (Article 441), notes the recent increase in the incorporation of the crime into domestic legislation across the globe and makes special reference to the Independent Expert Panel’s 2021 definition of ecocide. 

On Thursday 18 January, representations to the Catalan Parliament were heard from NGOs, community groups and experts on a bill to incorporate the crime of ecocide into the national Penal Code of Spain.  

Stop Ecocide International CEO Jojo Mehta attended the World Economic Forum in Davos between 15th - 19th January 2024. Jojo spoke at two events: ‘Where Nature Meets Conflict’, live-streamed on Tuesday 16th January and ‘Law and Litigation for Climate and Nature’ on Thursday 18th January and a clip of Jojo’s contribution to the live-streamed event on the 16th was virally misreported, including by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, Donald Trump Jr and Fox News.