In a letter sent to the Argentinean Association of Professors of Criminal Law (AAPDDP) and disseminated in the media, Pope Francis reflects on the important role played by experts in criminal law and calls for them to be above all "people passionate about justice, aware of the great duty they fulfil".
After commenting on human rights violations, Pope Francis makes an express reference to the need to incorporate "ecocide" as a fifth category of crimes against peace, i.e. to criminalise, at the international level, those conducts that involve the loss, damage or destruction of flora and fauna.
Pope Francis went on to say "We need jurists to debate and propose new forms of legal protection of Nature, for the human right to a healthy environment cannot be safeguarded without first safeguarding the rights of Nature. More specifically, the human right to life is meaningless if the ecosystems that sustain humanity do not have the right to exist. It is therefore indispensable to create a normative system that includes insurmountable limits and ensures the protection of ecosystems, before the new forms of power derived from the techno-economic paradigm sweep away freedom and justice".
According to Miguel Angel Asturias, Professor of Criminal Law and Environmental Crime at the University of Belgrano (Buenos Aires), and architect of a proposal to criminalise ecocide in Argentina, "Pope Francis' letter is very encouraging and should be heeded by the jurists of our country.... That is why we ask the Argentine Government, Academic Institutions, Judges and Prosecutors, Social and Environmental NGOs, defenders of the planet and all Argentines to listen to the words of Francis and take the demand to the relevant agencies to urgently include environmental crimes and ecocide in our Criminal Code of the Nation, supporting the proposal for the crime of ecocide that we from "Argentina Sin Ecocidio" have formulated, and that they also support the inclusion of ecocide as a fifth crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court."