Summary:
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.
Key respondents include “the king of human rights work", Michael Mansfield KC, Laura Mary Clarke OBE, CEO of ClientEarth, crossbench UK peer Baroness Boycott, Finnish Ambassador emeritus Mikko Pyhälä, Vanuatu’s Climate Change and Environment Minister, Ralph Regenvanu and Co-president of Club of Rome, Sandrine Dixson-Declève.
The consultation comes just weeks after the European Parliament voted to adopt a new EU crime directive that includes a provision to criminalise 'cases comparable to ecocide'.
Politicians, lawyers, academics, environmental charities and business leaders from around the world have responded to a public consultation held by the office of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan KC, urging the court to introduce a new international crime of ecocide into the Rome Statute.
The call for public comments from the Office of The Prosecutor (OTP) is aimed at informing the first draft of a proposed policy paper on how the Rome Statute could better address environmental crimes.
The respondents include "the king of human rights work", Michael Mansfield KC, Laura Mary Clarke OBE, CEO of ClientEarth, crossbench UK peer Baroness Boycott, Finnish Ambassador emeritus Mikko Pyhälä, Vanuatu’s Climate Change and Environment Minister, Ralph Regenvanu, and Co-president of Club of Rome, Sandrine Dixson-Declève.
Among the international organisations that have responded to the OTP’s consultation is U.S based Avaaz, whose petition asking lawmakers worldwide to establish new domestic and international ecocide laws recently gathered more than 500,000 signatures.
The respondents highlight the limited protection for the environment currently offered by the Rome Statute, which focuses primarily on deliberate and systematic harm to humans and protected property such as religious buildings or UNESCO heritage sites. As it stands, the only explicit protection for the environment within the statute applies to acts committed during wartime.
Introducing a new standalone crime of ecocide to the Rome Statute would criminalise the most serious cases of environmental destruction during both peacetime and conflict.
The concept of ecocide law has been gaining significant traction. In February, Belgium included the crime in its new penal code and several other states, including Brazil, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Spain (Catalunya) and Italy have all seen ecocide bills proposed or progressed in the last year. The European Union agreed in November to include crimes “comparable to ecocide” in its revised Environmental Crimes Directive, a decision that will now see all 27 member states introduce equivalent legislation within the next two years.
Establishing ecocide as the fifth international crime in the Rome Statute, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, would ensure that the most serious forms of environmental destruction would be criminalised at the very highest level, acting as a global deterrent for would-be perpetrators in the most senior positions of decision making power.
Human Rights expert and Head of Nexus Chambers, Michael Mansfield KC, used his response to the consultation to highlight the potential role that an international crime of ecocide, had it been implemented when the ICC was established, could have played in averting the current climate crisis, saying, “I strongly support the inclusion of ecocide in the calendar of international crime. The serious failure to do so in 1998 has been marked by a commensurate increase in climate crimes linked to fire, flood, drought, causing poverty, homelessness, and famine. None of these are covered by existing legislation which is focussed on conditions of war and conflict.
“All this poses the biggest threat to our very existence than any other cause. Without criminal sanction and implementation the gradual elimination of our carbon footprint will become a forlorn hope.
“In 2012 together with Polly Higgins I mounted a mock ecocide trial at the Supreme Court in London, concerning environmental events at that time, in order to demonstrate how it could work in practice. The events were the Deepwarter Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Tar sands extraction development in Canada. The relevant company directors were indicted. One was convicted by the randomly selected jury and the other acquitted.”
Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-president of The Club of Rome, said, “Every so often one comes across a simple initiative that has the power to create major positive change from within a complex system. One such initiative is making it a crime to severely harm the living world.
“The structure is already there to support it - the International Criminal Court. Recognition of "ecocide" within the ICC is entirely achievable, with recognised pathways to follow, and fills an obvious gap - a gap that has enabled devastating damage to environment and climate to take us to the brink of disaster.
“There are a number of extraordinary turnarounds in the economic, political, social and cultural spheres that must be accomplished in order to reach a stable and equitable survival scenario for humanity; through all of this the parameters for an earth in physical balance - planetary boundaries - must be respected. Ecocide law is a logical route to the requisite judicial enforcement of those parameters.“
Honourable Ralph Regenvanu MP, Climate Change and Environment Minister, Republic of Vanuatu, said, “Vanuatu welcomes the OTP’s renewed commitment to tackling environmental crimes. The unprecedented challenges posed by environmental damage, and hence climate change, must be urgently addressed, and international criminal law can play a key role in ensuring justice for people and nature.
"Vanuatu has long championed the addition of ‘ecocide’ to the Rome Statute as the fifth crime against peace, being the first country to call for its adoption at the ICC in 2019.
"We reaffirm our support to seeing severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being criminalised at the international level, and urge the OTP over the coming months to take into account the ever growing global support for ecocide as a standalone crime in the Rome Statute.”
Jojo Mehta, Co-founder and CEO of Stop Ecocide International, said, “Ecocide - in substance if not in name - was included within early drafts of the Rome Statute. It is worth reflecting critically upon what may have been different in our world today - the multiple pollution disasters, climate change exacerbation and threats to biodiversity that could have been averted - if it had in fact been included in the final treaty signed in 1998.
"This public consultation presents a golden opportunity for the Office of the Prosecutor to: acknowledge the need and demand for the recognition of ecocide in international criminal law; recognise the gravity of environmental crimes and their threats to peace, security, and global prosperity and well-being; and recommend the negotiation of a fifth international crime of ecocide. This would establish enforceable environmental protections for people and nature, both in peacetime and in conflict, on Earth and in space, for present and future generations.”
Click here to read the full-length responses to the OTP's consultation from those featured in this article.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Stop Ecocide International’s comments on the Office of the Prosecutor’s proposal of a policy on Environmental Crime can be found here.
About Stop-Ecocide International
SEI is the driving force behind the growing global movement to make ecocide an international crime. Its core work is activating and developing global cross-sector support for this initiative. SEI collaborates with diplomats, politicians, lawyers, corporate leaders, NGOs, indigenous and faith groups, influencers, academic experts, grassroots campaigns and individuals to this end.
About Jojo Mehta
CEO Jojo Mehta co-founded Stop Ecocide in 2017, alongside barrister and legal pioneer the late Polly Higgins, to support the establishment of ecocide as a crime at the International Criminal Court. She is 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.