In a landmark step for the International Criminal Court, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has issued a comprehensive policy devoted entirely to environmental damage, signalling a marked shift in how international justice will engage with ecological harm.

Ecocide law was raised three times during the UN Security Council's session on environmental impact of armed conflict and climate-driven security risks, demonstrating growing diplomatic attention to establishing mass environmental destruction as an international crime.

The 2025 Global Youth Statement representing thousands of young people from over 100 countries has called for the adoption of ecocide laws to hold corporations and states accountable for environmental destruction, while explicitly recognising that "wars, genocides and conflicts cause environmental degradation, exacerbate climate change through unchecked, boundless emissions."

The 91-page policy document, developed through YOUNGO - the official children and youth constituency of the UNFCCC - will be presented at COY20 and COP30 in Belém, Brazil this November. 

The Forum on the Participation of NGOs (“NGO Forum”) held ahead of the 85th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has adopted a civil-society resolution urging the Commission to support recognition of ecocide, defined in the resolution (drawing on the work of the Independent Expert Panel, 2021) as ‘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’. The resolution also encourages African states to strengthen domestic legal protections.

Representatives from all Sweden’s non-government parties have submitted private member’s bills calling for ecocide to become an international crime, demonstrating remarkable cross-party agreement on environmental protection. 

All parties in opposition— Sweden’s largest political party the Social Democrats, the Centre Party, the Green Party, and the Left Party—have proposed adding mass environmental destruction to the Rome Statute, and a member of the Liberals, from the governing coalition, proposes trials for crimes, including ecocide, committed during the war in Ukraine.

At its World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi (9-15 October), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world's largest and most diverse environmental network, comprising more than 1,400 member organisations including states, government agencies, civil society groups and Indigenous Peoples' organisations, has voted to adopt Motion 061, "Recognising the crime of ecocide to protect nature."

A coalition of Ghanaian civil society organisations has issued an urgent call to President John Dramani Mahama to take immediate action against what they describe as an ongoing "ecocide" driven by illegal gold mining (galamsey) in the country. 

The detailed letter from the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey, representing organisations including OneGhana Movement, A Rocha Ghana, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Ghana Institution of Engineering, University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), and more than 20 others, presents evidence from nonprofit Pure Earth and Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency showing mercury, arsenic, and lead contamination across Ghana's water, soil, and food systems.

Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has publicly confirmed government support for establishing ecocide as the fifth core crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, responding to questions from Green Party Member of the Riksdag Rebecka Le Moine during an open EU Committee meeting.

The Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Lima (Lima Bar Association) has placed the legal recognition of ecocide at the center of its highest civic distinction, the Medalla Cívica del Derecho (Civic Medal of Law), by awarding the medal to Jojo Mehta, CEO and co-founder, and Rodrigo Lledó Vásquez, Americas Director, both of Stop Ecocide International.

In a landmark address to the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo reaffirmed his country’s formal support for recognising ecocide as a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Zimbabwe's Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Wildlife has launched a formal inquiry in response to a petition [link to petition] by Kwekwe-based human rights and environmental defender Emmanuel Nkosilathi Moyo calling for the country to criminalise ecocide.

In a landmark advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has clarified that states have binding legal obligations under international law not only to protect the climate system and the environment, but also to prevent harm, cooperate across borders, and provide reparations where damage occurs.

Requested by the UN General Assembly in 2023, the advisory opinion is the result of a campaign initiated by a Pacific youth movement and carried forward diplomatically by the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu and co-sponsored and supported by over 130 countries. 

African environment ministers have formally agreed to include ecocide in the continent’s environmental priorities for the 2025–2027 biennium. The decision, confirmed by H.E. Dr. Abu Bakr Al-Harim, Libya’s Minister of Environment and current President of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), was taken at the 20th Ordinary Session of the conference and marks the first time ecocide has been explicitly recognised as a strategic continental priority by a UN forum.

At AMCEN 20, the Republic of Congo and the Republic of Burundi formally declared their support for recognising ecocide as a crime. 

Both countries made their announcement during ministerial statements at the 20th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights made public its Advisory Opinion on the climate emergency and human rights on 3 July, following more than two years of deliberation.

Advisory Opinion No. 32, requested by the States of Chile and Colombia in 2023, affirms that the international obligation to prevent irreversible harm to the environment and the climate constitutes a jus cogens norm — that is, a peremptory norm of international law.

On June 19 2025, Argentina advanced further toward criminalising the gravest forms of environmental destruction, with Senator Edith Terenzi (Chair of the Senate Environment Committee) presenting a comprehensive ecocide bill "Ley De Formas Especiales De Criminalidad Ambiental" (Law on Special Forms of Environmental Crimes) to the Senate, marking the third legislative initiative currently under consideration.

A cross-party declaration from the 73rd meeting of COSAC(Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union) - a formal EU-level forum for cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments of EU Member States - has for the first time acknowledged ecocide as a potential addition to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

On June 5 (World Environment Day), Dominican Congresswoman Llaniris Espinal introduced a bill to criminalise ecocide—severe or irreversible ecosystem damage. The proposed law carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison, mandatory environmental restoration, and financial sanctions.

On June 5, 2025, Sardinian councillor Francesco Cozzolino introduced a comprehensive bill in the Regional Council of Sardinia titled Norms for the Prevention and Repression of Ecocide. 

The bill defines ecocide as acts committed knowingly or with gross negligence that cause serious, widespread, or long-lasting environmental damage—closely aligning with the definition proposed in 2021 by the Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation.

In a historic move, Sweden’s biggest political party, the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna), has officially decided to push for an international ecocide law, signalling a major step forward in the global effort to make large-scale environmental destruction a crime under international law. The decision was taken by the party’s highest decision-making body, the S-congress, directing the party’s work for the next four years.