Can You Imagine?

As we are building an emerging picture of the pathway that it’s best to take to create the world we want to bring into being. We wish to bring one crucial, very practical piece to that emergent picture.

This key piece is an amendment to international law.  It is quite simply to make ecocide – mass damage & destruction of ecosystems - a crime.  The video below shows how such a law will support every environmental campaign on the planet.  Of course, this alone would be reason enough to take it forward, but I would like to share with you how beautifully simple, hugely powerful, and surprisingly possible it is.

How is it simple?  

In our so-called “first world” culture we use criminal law to draw the moral red line – to define what is, and what is not, acceptable.  Murder is a crime – it is not acceptable.  It is universally condemned and no corporation can legitimately build a business on it. 

Now at present, destroying nature does not attract that level condemnation.  For example, polluting corporations see it at best as a regrettable side-effect of making money.  So even though everyone knows we’re in a global ecological crisis, and even though there are hundreds of environmental treaties already in existence, dangerous industrial activity has continued to increase. 

Polly Higgins, who co-founded the Stop Ecocide campaign, once asked the head of a UK bank “Why do you continue to finance these destructive practices?”  The answer was simply “It’s not a crime.” 

Investment will flow where it is permitted to flow.  So until we make it a crime to inflict serious harm on the living world, the destruction will continue – and all those who care will continue mopping up the mess… when we could be simply turning off the tap.  When destroying the rainforest or spraying pesticides across huge areas becomes a crime, investors can no longer back projects which involve such activities, and businesses must therefore develop different modes of operation.

And it is important to make ecocide an international crime, because that is the simplest and most effective way to enforce it – within existing systems.  There is no need to appeal to a special court or tribunal – we can simply report the criminals to the police in any country that has ratified the crime.  This has the effect of allocating criminality to where it is actually happening – with those creating harm, not with those standing up to protect communities and ecosystems against that harm.  At a stroke it puts the police and the courts on the right side of the moral fence.  It’s a simple and effective safeguard.

And how it is powerful?

Firstly because ecocide crime makes individuals criminally responsible, specifically those in superior positions – the ones who make the decisions. Breaches of civil regulation usually only lead to fines – and corporations simply budget for those fines. 

But CEOs and government ministers will feel very differently about issuing a mining permit or signing off a drilling project could lead to a jail sentence.  Ecocide crime is different to genocide or war crimes in this respect: corporations depend upon reputation and public confidence, and no CEO wants to be seen as the equivalent of a war criminal.

Secondly, making ecocide a crime is powerful because it puts the whole world on legal notice.
Criminal laws don’t work retrospectively but from the date they’re put in place. 
Putting in place a new international crime takes time.  We estimate around 3-5 years. And it is already on the horizon.  Once a state actually proposes it at the International Criminal Court, which could be as early as this year or next year, the writing is on the wall.  It is like giving the entire world a deadline – creating an automatic transition period.  When the data protection laws came in in Europe – every single business knew that it would have to comply by a certain date, and every single business had to adjust its practices in advance of that date.

 And with covid-19 we have seen that when the world needs to, it can absolutely act that quickly.  What’s a few years to turn the entire planetary ship around?  In many arenas we’ve done it in a few short weeks.

We are often asked – which CEOs or political figures would you want to see in the dock under ecocide law?  We can think of several, but it is not actually our aim to “put the bad guys in the dock”... ideally, we don’t want to see anyone in the dock.  Our aim is to change practices so that the Earth is genuinely protected, so that the harm is stopped.  It will start with those at the very beginning of the production chain – the banks, financiers, the insurers, the re-insurers – who are always the first to see legislative changes coming.  And they are the ones with their hands on that faucet.  They are the ones who enable polluting corporations to continue with business as usual.  When the flow of funds is diverted, things will change pretty fast.

For us though, the truly inspiring power of this law is the way it will – subtly but surely – begin to change that mindset of separation – the mindset that has dominated Western culture not just for decades but for centuries, allowing a relatively tiny number of individuals and state actors to subjugate both nature and much of the rest of humanity. 

So how does it change that mindset?  When we place “ecocide” alongside “genocide” in our legal frameworks, when we make mass destruction of nature equivalent to mass destruction of human beings, we change the ground rules in a way that helps us to see a reality which has always been there… a reality which indigenous cultures have never forgotten… we are ALL PART of the wider web of life on this planet and we cannot survive, let alone thrive, unless we acknowledge this. 

Finally, how is it possible?

This is the exciting part.  Making ecocide an international crime sounds like a massive task, but in fact it is surprisingly achievable.  The procedure is simple and has four stages.  To start the process it only takes one state member of the International Criminal Court.  They must officially propose an amendment to the Rome Statute – the Court’s governing document and arguably the most powerful legal document in the world. 

With a simple majority at the Court’s annual Assembly that amendment can be discussed.  Then, with a two thirds majority, the amendment can be adopted into the Statute.  Finally after that, states can begin to ratify it. 

At present there are 123 member states so that would mean 82 states would need to support it.  It sounds like a lot, but it’s a one-state, one-vote system, so small island states at the sharp end of climate change, or indeed Amazon and African states suffering toxic extractive practices, have as much power to take this forward as any of the G20 countries.  Just adding those groups together (even without Brazil) could already reach the required number.

And even countries which don’t ratify this crime will still be restricted by it.  They will no longer be able to operate ecocidal businesses in countries which have ratified, and their nationals can be arrested and prosecuted in those countries.  This is how the Chilean dictator Pinochet was arrested in the UK for Crimes against Humanity back home in Chile.  Just having the crime on the Statute makes this possible.

And the best thing about doing this at the international level is that it is much lower political risk than trying to pass ecocide laws country by country.  We’ve already seen in France that individual states are reluctant to be the first to adopt, it feels too economically risky, but at the international level, by definition a large number are required to take it forward.  This creates political safety in numbers.  It also creates the opportunity to be seen to lead on something everyone already knows, in their hearts, is needed.  Those states who take this forward are going to be the heroes of tomorrow’s history classes.

We are already working with researchers, international criminal lawyers and small nation states, but governments across the world also need to understand ecocide law as a public demand, and an essential practical step to a liveable world.  This comes from expanding the global conversation and mobilising civil support.  This is why we advocate at both the international diplomatic level and in our public-facing campaign, which anybody can join at StopEcocide.earth. 

And now, in the space created by the covid-19 pandemic, there is a real opportunity for putting this law on the global roadmap.

So – it’s simple. It’s powerful.  It’s possible.  And it’s inevitable if we are to transition to a sustainable world.

If we can change the ground rules to prevent serious harm to the Earth, we have a genuine chance for that world to emerge.