Africa is leading a historic global shift in environmental justice. With ecocide officially recognised as a continental priority by AMCEN, African ministers have committed to exploring its criminalisation as a vital tool to protect ecosystems and communities.

A profound shift is underway in international law. The world’s highest courts — including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights — are affirming that states have binding obligations to prevent large-scale environmental destruction and ensure justice for those harmed. The Inter-American Court has even recognised this duty as a jus cogens norm — an imperative standard of international law from which no state may derogate.

The ICJ’s landmark advisory opinion goes further, finding that failure to prevent harm to the climate system, particularly from fossil fuels, may constitute an internationally wrongful act requiring compensation and reparations. Similar proceedings have unfolded before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and are in process at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Yet, while state responsibility is becoming clearer, individual accountability remains a major gap. Recognising ecocide— severe, widespread or long-term damage to the environment — as a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) would close this gap, ensuring corporate and political leaders can no longer act with impunity.

At the 20th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), ministers took a historic step: ecocide is now a strategic priority in Africa’s environmental agenda for 2025–2027, with an ad hoc committee mandated to study its classification as a crime. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, joined by the Republic of the Congo and Burundi, has been instrumental in driving this agenda forward.

This African momentum aligns with global developments: Europe’s new Environmental Crime Directive (2024) gives states two years to transpose offences comparable to ecocide into national law; Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and the Dominican Republic are advancing ambitious ecocide bills; and Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa have tabled a proposal to amend the ICC Rome Statute to include ecocide as the fifth core international crime.