Summary:
Pope Francis has called on governments to take responsibility on climate change and environmental damage.
This comes on the brink of ecocide legislation progressing across the global legislatures.
Pope Francis previously called for recognition of ecocide and for its inclusion as a crime at the ICC in 2019.
Pope Francis has published “Laudate Deum”, an Apostolic Exhortation which is calling on governments to take responsibility on climate change and environmental damage.
Following up from his 2015 “Laudato Sì”, Pope Francis highlights the inarguable human origins for the global climate emergency, and advocates for more international co-operation to control environmental damage. Pope Francis was also the first Head of State, in 2019, to publicly support the inclusion of ecocide as a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
Pope Francis shares that: “when we talk about the possibility of some form of world authority regulated by law, we need not necessarily think of a personal authority” but of “more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defence of fundamental human rights”.
He continues saying that international governments “must be endowed with real authority, in such a way as to provide for the attainment of certain essential goals.”
This comes on the brink of ecocide legislation progressing across the global legislatures including Mexico, Brazil and Belgium. “Ecocide” means “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 being caused by those acts”.
One example of “real authority” on ecocide is the European Parliament officially declaring support for the inclusion of ecocide-level crimes into the European Union’s revised Directive on protection of the environment through criminal law. A decision on whether ecocide will be included in the directive is expected in November.
Rodrigo Lledó, Director of Stop Ecocide Americas, praises the Pope’s statement, saying:
“Pope Francis called in 2019 for recognition of ecocide as a crime against peace. Today, in his Laudate Deum message, he called once more for the prevention of “damage done to our common home” and for establishing “global and effective rules” permitting the “global safeguarding” of human and social rights and environmental protection.
Criminal law can provide the judicial enforceability needed for this. If, as Pope Francis suggested and many countries are now discussing, ecocide is included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, this would provide real preventive power to protect creation and help to effect the cultural change without which, as the Pope says, “there is no lasting change.”
Stop Ecocide International has worked closely with politicians across the globe to develop ecocide bills and is encouraged by the rapid global progress of this protective legislation.