If you’ve been keeping up with international environmental news, you may have heard the term ecocide pop up. In late March the legal affairs committee of the European Parliament unanimously voted to include ecocide as a punishable offense within the European Union. However, this is not a final decision, with it needing to be discussed by the European Parliament, the Commission, and the 27 member states in the Council of the European Union.
So, what exactly is ecocide? Back in June 2021, legal experts from around the world drew up an official definition for use by the International Criminal Court (ICC). They define ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.” This could become the fifth offense the ICC prosecutes, in addition to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. As of the time of writing, ecocide has not been officially added to their list.
Discussions surrounding ecocide have been around since the 1970s, with former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme bringing it up at the 1972 UN environmental conference in Stockholm and Polly Higgins, a Scottish barrister, led a decade long campaign for it to be recognized as a crime against humanity up until her death in 2019. Others have used similar terms to describe environmental disasters caused by war, such as the effects of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War by the United States that destroyed millions of hectares of forests and the mass fires set in oil wells by the Iraqi military in the 1990s as they retreated from Kuwait. Armed conflict in the Sahara-Sahel region of Africa has led to decreased animal populations.
We are living in an era where the consequences of poor environmental decisions are having stronger effects every year. If we want to prevent further damage, we need stronger environmental regulations, including those against ecocide to hopefully discourage them from continuing to happen. Ecocide has yet to have been truly enshrined in any environmental laws, but hopefully that will change in the coming months.
Written by Sarah Woodams ‘24(T5)