The Crime of Ecocide

The Promise Institute’s thinking and leadership is helping shepherd ecocide law into reality.

If you attended our 2020 Symposium on Human Rights and the Climate Crisis, you may recall the closing panel which explored how international criminal law could protect the environment. (If you missed it, you can watch the video here.)

A little over two years and one pandemic later, a lot has happened. The symposium was followed by a working group at the Promise Institute, which then joined forces with an international expert panel to draft a new crime of ecocide. Executive Director Kate Mackintosh was deputy co-chair of that panel, which was steered by Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow and included nine other remarkable jurists from around the globe. After months of collaboration, they have made history.

The Crime of Ecocide

The panel proposes the following definition of ecocide to be included as a new crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. For the purpose of this Statute, “ecocide” means 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.

  1. For the purpose of this Statute, “ecocide” means 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.
  2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:
    1. “Wanton” means with reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated;
    2. “Severe” means damage which involves very serious adverse changes, disruption or harm to any element of the environment, including grave impacts on human life or natural, cultural or economic resources;
    3. “Widespread” means damage which extends beyond a limited geographic area, crosses state boundaries, or is suffered by an entire ecosystem or species or a large number of human beings;
    4. “Long-term” means damage which is irreversible or which cannot be redressed through natural recovery within a reasonable period of time;
    5. “Environment” means the earth, its biosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, as well as outer space.
See Legal Definition and Commentary

Press Coverage (So Far) Includes:

Ecocide Could Change the Course of Climate History

It is our hope that ecocide will become a watershed fifth international crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, sitting alongside Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and the Crime of Aggression. Beyond that however, our broader goal is to see global shifts in attitudes to the environment. Because the law holds key decision-makers individually responsible, our hope is that it will alter the calculus of risk, asserting the value of our natural world. We all win when that happens.

Learn More About Ecocide Law

We have partnered with the Stop Ecocide Foundation to create the website EcocideLaw.com. It’s both a legal and historical resource on ecocide, including past events and discussions, a timeline of the evolution of the idea of ecocide, scholarly articles and more. Please visit the site if you’re so inclined, and be sure to tell other environmental allies about it.

You can also learn more from Executive Director Kate Mackintosh through this UCLA News article.

Media Contact
Natalie Monsanto, monsanto@law.ucla.edu

Many Promise Institute Hands Helped Shepherd Ecocide Law Into Being

Our April 2020 Working Group’s report helped shape the current definition of ecocide.