Oil drilling, deforestation, mining, overfishing … Could business leaders, political leaders or even heads of state at the origin of the massive destruction of ecosystems one day have to report to the International Criminal Court? (CPI)? It is in any case to achieve this objective that an international group of renowned experts, specialized in international criminal law, environmental law and human rights, worked for six months, at the request of the Dutch Foundation. Stop Ecocide. Drawing on philosophical, religious and legal texts, and on international jurisprudence, he agreed on an international legal definition of the crime of ecocide.
Drawn up for the attention of States Parties to the Rome Statute – a document which defines the international crimes over which the ICC has jurisdictional power – this definition should enable them to propose an amendment aimed at modifying the statute of the Hague jurisdiction, and to criminalize ecocide on the same basis as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Ecocide consists of ” illegal or arbitrary acts committed knowing the real probability that these acts will cause serious damage to the environment which is widespread or lasting ”, explained, Tuesday, June 22, the co-chairs of the panel of 12 members, the professor of law and Franco-British lawyer Philippe Sands – accustomed to litigation before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea – and the Senegalese Dior Fall Sow, lawyer and former UN prosecutor.
This definition exposes the consequences of this ecological crime, without giving specific examples, so as to be able to include damage which does not yet necessarily exist. She is ” both effective in relation to the current climate crisis and legally acceptable by States ”, considers the French lawyer Valérie Cabanes, who took part in the work.
“A real momentum”
The concept of ecocide was born in the early 1970s after the massive use in Vietnam by the American army of Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant which ravaged Vietnamese forests and decimated local populations. Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme used the term at the Stockholm Earth Summit in 1972, but it has entered the public debate very widely in recent years. In particular in 2019, when two island nations, Vanuatu (Pacific) and the Maldives (Indian Ocean), respectively threatened by the rise in the level of the Pacific Ocean and that of the Indian Ocean, called for a “Serious consideration” of the crime of ecocide.
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