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.

Scotland is poised to become the first UK nation to criminalise ecocide - severe and reckless harm to nature - under a new Member’s Bill published in Holyrood today. 

The Ecocide (Scotland) Bill, introduced by MSP Monica Lennon, would make it a criminal offence to cause widespread, long-term or irreversible environmental damage, with potential penalties including up to 20 years in prison for individuals and unlimited fines for companies.

The Permanent Mission of the State of Palestine to the Kingdom of the Netherlands has formally described the environmental destruction in Gaza as ecocide, citing that less than 5% of agricultural land remains suitable for cultivation and calling for international legal recognition of the long-term consequences. The statement — the first by a state-level actor to explicitly use the term in relation to Gaza — marks a significant development in the growing international discourse on environmental harm and accountability during conflict.

On 26 May 2025, Assembly Member Teremuura Kohumoetini-Rurua, of the Tavini Huiraatira party, introduced a bill in the Assembly of French Polynesia—with the support of 20 colleagues—that aims to criminalise ecocide. The bill seeks to strengthen the territory’s legal framework by establishing comprehensive protections for nature and imposing stricter criminal penalties for serious environmental harm.

The Justice and Human Rights Commission of the Congress of the Republic of Peru has published a unified bill to criminalise ecocide. Dated 21 May 2025, the legal opinion consolidates three earlier proposals—submitted by Congressmembers Américo Gonza, Isaac Mita Alanoca and Ruth Luque— into a single legislative instrument that proposes adding a new article (305-A) to the Peruvian Penal Code.

The Council of Europe has adopted a landmark treaty - the Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law - which defines and criminalises a wide range of environmental offences and establishes a legal framework for states to prosecute intentional conduct resulting in environmental disasters 'tantamount to ecocide’.

A new legal opinion by Dr Stephan Sina, commissioned by Stop Ecocide Deutschland, sets out how Germany could incorporate the EU’s revised Environmental Crime Directive into national law — focusing on serious environmental harm comparable to ecocide.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) — Africa’s largest trade union federation, representing over six million workers — has publicly called for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This clear position aligns the NLC with growing global momentum to criminalise the most serious environmental harms — momentum now driven in part by African leadership. In September 2024, Vanuatu, Samoa, and Fiji formally submitted a proposal to amend the Rome Statute to include ecocide; the Democratic Republic of Congo subsequently became the first African nation to support the amendment.

In a historic move, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the deliberative body of Europe’s foremost human rights organisation, has adopted a resolution endorsing the Draft Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law.

If adopted and ratified by member states, the Convention would become the first legally binding international treaty to criminalise severe and large-scale environmental destruction — “conduct that many term ecocide.”

On April 1st, 2025, MP Margarita Stolbizer presented a comprehensive bill dedicated to environmental crimes, which includes a Chapter on the crime of ecocide, using the definition developed by the Independent Expert Panel convened in 2021 by the Stop Ecocide Foundation.

Turkiye’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has supported a citizen-led petition to criminalise ecocide nationally. The petition was presented to parliament on 28 November 2023, after accumulating close to 29,000 wet signatures.

The German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) has included a commitment in its 2025 Election Programme(p.55) to the consistent implementation of the recently revised EU Environmental Crime Directive(ECD) in Germany, as well as to the prevention of the most severe environmental crimes (ecocide) through an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.