supporters
Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action
Director of health at Mother Earth Foundation
“I fully believe in this cause. Making ecocide a recognised law will place a cap on the irresponsible actions of fat cats who hide behind corporate shields to destroy lives and harm the planet.”
Founder Director and Trustee of Forum for the Future
“The idea of establishing the crime of Ecocide is both timely and compelling... I am now a fully signed-up Earth Protector! I agree with the analysis that ‘only criminal law can stop the harm’, as it’s clear that existing legal sanctions are totally failing to do what we so urgently need them to do.”
Author & journalist
“I believe [a crime of ecocide] would change everything. It would radically shift the balance of power, forcing anyone contemplating large-scale vandalism to ask themselves: ‘Will I end up in the international criminal court for this?’ It could make the difference between a habitable and an uninhabitable planet.”
Primatologist and anthropologist. Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute Founder of the Roots & Shoots. UN Messenger of Peace since 2002
“The concept of Ecocide is long overdue. It could lead to an important change in the way people perceive – and respond to – the current environmental crisis.”
Leading Human Rights Lawyer
“The problem in the past is that if you hold a company responsible [for environmental destruction], who sits in the dock? Who is responsible? There are real people in the company and the object of the Ecocide act is not just aimed at companies it is aimed at individuals… individual responsibility is the only way there will be any change.”
Author, Public Speaker & Alternative Medicine Advocate
“I’m supporting Polly Higgins on her big idea of making Ecocide a Crime Against Peace. It should be a crime because what we call the environment is our universal body; the trees are our lungs, the rivers our circulation. If our trees didn’t breathe we wouldn’t breathe; the air is our breath. It’s our body that we are killing and that’s why we need to make it a crime.”
UK MP for Brighton Pavilion. Former Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
“Establishing the law of Ecocide would signal a major breakthrough in the way we deal with crimes against the natural world. Polly Higgins’ groundbreaking proposal to list Ecocide as the fifth global crime against peace would go a long way towards deterring and holding to account CEOs, companies and nations. Whether it’s oil drilling in the Arctic, deforestation in the Amazon, or over-fishing in the Atlantic, activities which impact severely on global ecosystems would be brought under far closer scrutiny. It could also play a significant role in encouraging companies to drop the dirty, polluting industries of old, and invest in the clean technologies and renewable energy solutions of the future.”
The worldwide destruction of Earth’s climate and biodiversity is proof that our current legal system is failing to protect the natural ecosystems that all life depends on. We need to develop more earth centric laws that acknowledge and protect the innate rights of nature itself, such as a law on ecocide. They will enhance a more respectful and sustainable treatment of our common home in our ongoing social, cultural and economic development. It will help us preserve for all the children of all species what is valuable and beautiful in this world.
Editor of Permaculture Magazine. Co-founder of The Sustainability Centre
“Polly Higgins’ work to make Ecocide an international crime holds the key for humanity to change direction and invest in a more stable, equitable future that will benefit us all. Business as usual is no longer a viable option for us or the planet. It is now critical that we adopt Ecocide as an international law.”
Former UN Special Rapporteur,
Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
"Fracking ...represents an extremely dangerous ecocidal assault on the environment, and must be opposed and prohibited.”
Founder of, Sea First Foundation
"We call our planet Earth, but in fact we should call it "Planet Ocean". Over 70% of the surface itself consists of ocean/sea... it is literally vital that we have a healthy ocean... the Sea First Foundation supports this initiative wholeheartedly. Ecocide law will protect the ocean from the damage and destruction caused by humans."
Human Rights Lawyer
"As a lawyer and father, I plea for laws that effectively protect our planet, our children and our future generations. Recognising the human right to a healthy environment and ecocide law at the global level, will definitely help. We only have one planet and time is running out. Ecocide will mend our criminal law system. Join us, get on board: become an Earth Protector."
Founder of Liology Institute. Author & Cognitive Historian
"The International Criminal Court ... has had the effect of putting tyrants everywhere on notice that they can no longer act with impunity. If ecocide were declared a crime by the ICC, this could have a similarly daunting effect on those corporate tyrants who currently know they can get away with devastating the world’s “sacrifice zones” where they are pillaging the earth’s resources for profit."
Journalist, author & campaigner
"It's impossible to overstate the importance of the campaign for an international law to criminalise ecocide, putting the mass destruction of nature, on the same legal rulebook as genocide and slavery. Importantly, perpetrators would face personal liability and prosecution in the International Criminal Court. I urge everyone to join this campaign by becoming 'Earth Protectors' because of the transformative effect this law would have on environmental protection worldwide."
Indian Scholar, Environmental Activist, Food Sovereignty Advocate and Anti-Globalization Author. Founder of Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources
“The Ecocide trial is a very important step in waking us up to the violence which is the foundation of the current economy. The ideal of limitless growth is leading to limitless violations of the rights of the Earth and of the rights of nature. This is ecocide.”
Co-Founder and Director of The Hamilton Group
“Having devised and organised the Ecocide Mock Trial at The Supreme Court of the UK, I have got to know the arguments for and against Ecocide. I am convinced that making Ecocide a Crime against Peace will make Heads of State and those who run corporations think very carefully about authorising activities which might lead to major environmental damage. Building Restorative Justice into the proposed Ecocide Act as part of the sentencing process can only help to bring greater understanding and awareness of the need to change thinking and raise awareness of the damage done to humans and non-humans in the pursuit on non-sustainable extractive processes.”
Bolivia’s former Chief Climate Change Negotiator
“Think on the people not on business. You are responsible for what can be the biggest genocide and ecocide of the 21st Century.”
Francesca de Gasparis, Former Director of the European Office
“We have reached the point in history where it is impossible to ignore the widespread damage we, the human race, are causing the Earth. Establishing Ecocide as a crime is an essential and timely step which will allow the international community to hold to account those who undertake the most environmentally-destructive acts.”
Author, Chair of Council of Canadians, Chair of Board of Food and Water (Washington)
“Unlimited growth assumes unlimited resources, and this is the genesis of Ecocide. The move to commodify all of nature is the next step in its destruction. The earth is not ours to plunder. Nature has rights as surely as any that exist.”
Former Programme Director Pachamama Alliance
“The proposed Ecocide legal framework that comes from Polly Higgins can be a critical step toward a just, sustainable and thriving way of life for all. It is clearly a moral crime to destroy Earth’s life-generating capacity and eliminate the diverse life-forms with whom we share this planet. It should be a legally recognised crime as well.”
American Actress and Environmental Activist
“Ecocide is a crime against ALL life! Big respect & love.
Chair of Uniting for Peace
“The catastrophic degradation of environment, destruction, damage or loss of ecosystems is happening on a mass scale everyday as more and more carbon emissions are emitted by the ever increasing industrial output in our world. The best way to overcome it is to adopt Polly Higgins proposed Law of Ecocide for the safety of future generations.”
Rotary Peace Fellows co-ordinator UK
“We wish you every success in your call for the Law of Ecocide to be recognized as a crime against peace. We share your concern and fear for the future of humanity and for all life on our planet.”
European Division
“The World Peace Prayer Society welcomes the Law of Ecocide to be recognised as a crime against peace. One of our activities is to pray for the peace of nature and we therefore support her (Polly Higgins) efforts to stop the severe damage to our environment and wonderful planet. May Peace Prevail with Nature – May Peace Prevail on Earth.”
Environmental Lawyer, Former Vice Chair for Western Europe of the World Conservation Union Commission (IUCN) and Former President of the European Environmental Law Association
“I think it’s a good idea to make Ecocide a crime, it’s a good idea of the very highest level of crimes, the most serious crimes, and also it should be imposed as a crime in cases where people have been negligent or were at fault in some way.”
Environmental lawyer and barrister
“Ecocide law is an idea that just has to come. It’s turning something which humans as a whole regard as a crime into something which is internationally recognised.”
Former President of the Australian Bar Association
“The injustice of companies being recognised as a ‘legal person’ seems to be exacerbated in my mind by the fact that what seems to be the major right of the corporation to make profit at a cost to everything else. The major principle, the first principle, the one to which all others bow, is the accepted obligation of the company and it’s directors to profit. Ecocide law reverses that.”
Former vice-president of the International Court of Justice and WFC councillor
“If people of the Stone Age had been able to cause damage to the environment and to our generation, we would have condemned them as savages, brutes and barbarians. Our generation and particularly those who are specially entrusted with the care of the environment will have to answer before the bar of history for our default and abuse of trust.”
Politician and Former Member of Parliament for the Green Party. New Zealand parliamentarian
“There is a gathering movement to make Ecocide – the mass destruction of the natural environment – a crime in international law. Friends of the Earth have suggested that ‘Ecocide law may be the only way to make climate criminals rethink crimes of commission and omission’ after the lawyer, Polly Higgins toured New Zealand earlier this year.”
Former MP and UK Environment Minister
“There are some things we simply should not do; leave quite a lot of oil deep in the ocean or destroy vast quantities of boreal forest or pristine wilderness… in order to extract that increment of oil. There is a red line in politics, it has not yet been applied to the environment. This is what an Ecocide law will do.”
Former Green Party Member of the European Parliament
“We see destruction and devastation of our planet on a daily basis. These are crimes against the environment, against nature, and in turn against humanity. It is time for these to be recognised as crimes in law, which is why I support Polly Higgins and her Law of Ecocide.”
Environmentalist and former Greek Member of the European Parliament
“Ecocide is the missing fifth Crime Against Peace.”
Founder President of the Club of Budapest
“In these days when the human impact on the environment is becoming everyday more evident and proves to be not only damaging to our surroundings but a serious threat to human life and survival, it is imperative that we should declare Ecocide a Crime Against Peace.”