Germany moves to criminalise cases “comparable to ecocide” as EU Directive begins entering national law

Summary

Germany has published a draft reform of its environmental criminal law, making an early move to translate the EU’s Environmental Crime Directive into national law. The Directive requires all Member States to introduce stronger criminal provisions for serious environmental destruction by May 2026, including qualified offences for widespread, long-lasting or irreversible damage “comparable to ecocide”. 

Together with 10 partner organisations, including Greenpeace Germany and Ecosia, Stop Ecocide Germany has submitted an official statement calling for the introduction of “Ecocide” as a crime of endangerment. The participating organisations aim to ensure that criminal law takes preventive action in cases where there is a likelihood of catastrophic damage being caused, rather than only after the destruction has occurred. This is in line with the principle that ‘criminal law is protective law’ on the one hand and with the logic of the basic offences covered byGerman environmental criminal law on the other hand.

This move sits within a wider global shift towards criminalising mass harm to nature. At the international level, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa have formally proposed adding ecocide to the Rome Statute, now backed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose leadership also helped secure AMCEN’s decision to recognise ecocide as a strategic African priority for 2025–2027. Within Europe, the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law—signed, at the time of writing, by Moldova, Portugal and the European Union—establishes a category for environmental destruction ‘tantamount to ecocide’. At the ICC, the Office of the Prosecutor has released its Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage Through the Rome Statute, which underscores that severe environmental destruction can be central to the commission and experience of atrocity crimes. This broader direction of travel is further reflected in the 2025 vote at the World Conservation Congress, where IUCN’s 1,400-strong membership backed a motion calling on states to recognise ecocide as a serious crime in national and international law. 

Wolf Hingst, Branch Lead of Stop Ecocide Deutschland, said:

“The EU’s Environmental Crime Directive is now beginning to take shape in national legislation, and we’re glad to see Germany leading the way. Whereas the draft deserves respect in tackling the complex adjustments necessary in a number of German laws, it falls short especially in defining the gravest offences as endangerment crimes. As it stands, the bill only allows legal action once irreversible harm has occurred. We continue to work with partners to advocate for an approach that prioritises prevention of the worst harms as well as punishment.”  

The full text of the German government’s draft reform and all official statements can be read here.