Ecocide

Ecocide (from Ancient Greek 'home' and Latin 'to kill') is the destruction of the environment by humans. Ecocide threatens all populations that are dependent on natural resources for maintaining ecosystems and ensuring their ability to support future generations. The Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide describes it as 'unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts'. Common causes of ecocide include war, pollution, wanton overexploitation of natural resources and other industrial disasters. The term was popularised by Olof Palme when he accused the United States of ecocide at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment due to the country's use of Agent Orange and other herbicides/defoliants during the Vietnam War. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 1998, enforced 2002) makes no provision for the crime of ecocide in peacetime, only in wartime. Ecocide in peacetime was to have been included in the Rome Statute, but was removed due to objections by the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.…

Ecocide (from Ancient Greek 'home' and Latin 'to kill') is the destruction of the environment by humans. Ecocide threatens all populations that are dependent on natural resources for maintaining ecosystems and ensuring their ability to support future generations. The Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide describes it as 'unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts'. Common causes of ecocide include war, pollution, wanton overexploitation of natural resources and other industrial disasters. The term was popularised by Olof Palme when he accused the United States of ecocide at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment due to the country's use of Agent Orange and other herbicides/defoliants during the Vietnam War. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 1998, enforced 2002) makes no provision for the crime of ecocide in peacetime, only in wartime. Ecocide in peacetime was to have been included in the Rome Statute, but was removed due to objections by the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. The disparity stemmed from the colonial powers' objections to inclusion of cultural genocide, during negotiations that had led to the creation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the CPPCG, or Genocide Convention, adopted 1948, enforced 1951). Ecocide has been made national law in several countries, with many more countries and the European Union considering introduction of such a law. Stop Ecocide International and others are working to introduce ecocide in peacetime into the Rome Statute, making it both international and national law. Several countries – including Fiji, Niue, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Vanuatu – have supported criminalizing ecocide under international law. Ecocide is a common theme in fiction, with many films and books set in a post-ecocide world, including James Cameron's Avatar films, Blade Runner, Mad Max, WALL-E, Interstellar, Threads, and Soylent Green. ===2020s=== In November 2020, a panel of international lawyers convened by Stop Ecocide International and chaired by British law professor Philippe Sands and Senegalese jurist Dior Fall Sow started drafting a proposed law criminalizing ecocide. In May 2021, the European parliament adopted 2 reports advancing the recognition of ecocide as a crime. In order to enforce implementation and increase citizens' trust in EU rules, and to prevent and remedy environmental damage more effectively, Parliament demands that the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) and the Environmental Crime Directive (ECD) be improved. Also in May 2021 the 179 members¹ of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) passed an almost-unanimous resolution inviting member parliaments recognise the crime of ecocide. The governments of some of the island states at risk from climate change (Fiji, Niue, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga and Vanuatu) launched the 'Port Vila Call for a Just Transition to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific', calling for the phase out fossil fuels and the 'rapid and just transition' to renewable energy and strengthening environmental law including introducing the crime of ecocide. On 16 November 2023, European Union legislators reached an agreement on a new directive with jail sentences for the worst polluters and companies fined up to 5% of their global turnover. The agreed law has been formally approved by Parliament in February 2024 and became the Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law. ==See also== Environmental degradation Environmental disaster List of environmental issues Rights of nature Water scarcity

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