The global movement to enshrine the crime of Ecocide within international law has the wind in its sails after a series of recent positive developments.
This month, municipal authorities in the Netherlands, business leaders in Sweden, and politicians in Finland called for Ecocide to be made a crime via the International Criminal Court. These come on the heels of a vote by the European Parliament to criminalize “crimes comparable to ecocide” in a new continent-wide Environmental Crimes Directive and the publication of a new Islamic Charter that also references the crime.
In 2021, an independent panel of legal experts defined ecocide 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.”
Multiple countries have already established ecocide as a national crime - including Mexico, Brazil, and Scotland - while Belgium recently became the first to recognize it as an international-level crime; the ultimate goal of the global campaign Stop Ecocide International.
Stop Ecocide International's vision is to: "Enable a new international legal framework to protect Earth and all its current and future inhabitants by establishing criminal liability for widespread destruction to ecosystems, so that human behavior is consciously aligned with a widely recognized moral code of respect, peace and duty of care for all life. Based on the principle: 'First do no Harm', this offers protection against ecocide and forms the bridge to a liveable world."
Making ecocide the fifth major international crime, alongside genocide and crimes against humanity, “would act as a global deterrent for would-be perpetrators” of environmental offenses “in the most senior positions of decision-making power.” To get involved, link up with the Stop Ecocide campaign in your country.