Yes and no. Civil society awareness-raising is not the same as closed-door diplomatic work but it is all connected - we know from the UN level that the civil society conversation has had an important impact - indeed that is part of the reason behind our civil society work. (In turn, part of the intention of putting the law in place is to shift cultural perceptions, so it’s a reciprocal situation.)

Our primary role is exactly the same internationally and within national teams: we foster and drive the ecocide law conversation in a positive way. Lack of understanding is the main obstacle… so it is up to us to make clear that it is safe, necessary and inevitable for governments to legislate.

As the law will not be retroactive, current situations may not ever be addressed directly by the law. So a good approach in such instances is to focus on what might have been approached differently at the “drawing board” stage had the law been in place. This helps people to understand the merits of adopting it.

NB We’re aware that ecocide in conflict is a bit different. Ecocide law may not deter such harms in the way it is likely to do in peacetime, but it will make them justiciable (able to be prosecuted).

Generally speaking, other than to recognise progress on ecocide law, we don’t usually take public positions on particular topics. However we can point to others doing so where it is useful and relevant (eg “oh look! X journalist is calling Y situation an ecocide…” or “X academic has written a paper on the relevance of ecocide law to Y and Z context”... these are often good contexts for a Guest Blog).

If you are in doubt as to the most useful angle on a particular situation please do feel free to reach out to Rob to check.

As per this video, a good simple filter is to ask the question: “does this topic relate productively or contribute directly to furthering ecocide law at government level?”