Council of Europe Assembly Advances Historic Ecocide Treaty

April 14, 2025

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.”

Summary

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.”
The Assembly also recommends including the definition of ecocide proposed in 2021 by the Independent Expert Panel to help guide states in shaping national legislation.
The resolution — passed on 10 April 2025 with 79 in favour, 11 against and 1 abstention — signals strong support within the Council of Europe’s parliamentary body, but is not a final approval. The decisive next step will be the Convention’s formal adoption by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe due on 14 May 2025, after which it will be open for signature and ratification by member states.

Yuliia Ovchynnykova, Member of Parliament of Ukraine (Servant of the People), and Member of the Ukrainian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said:

“I believe it is essential not only to acknowledge ecocide as a profound harm to both nature and humanity — we must call for its codification in both domestic and international law. With this resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe takes a significant step toward that goal, endorsing a Convention that explicitly includes particularly serious environmental offences — conduct that many term ‘ecocide’ — and aims to ensure robust and inclusive protection for the natural world. By tackling such offences alongside illegal logging, unlawful fishing, and the destruction of all forms of biodiversity — including fungi — the Assembly sends a clear and decisive message to governments: environmental crimes can no longer, and will no longer, be tolerated.”

Read the Draft Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law here.