Expert Panel to Draft a Legal Definition for the International Crime of “Ecocide”

The STOP ECOCIDE Foundation – in partnership with GD-linked Climate Counsel – is convening a panel of experts to draft a legal definition for the international crime of “ecocide” – to sit alongside the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The concept of criminalising mass damage and destruction of ecosystems or “ecocide” at a global level has been steadily gaining traction in recent months since small island states Vanuatu and the Maldives called for “serious consideration” of it at the International Criminal Court’s annual Assembly of States Parties in December last year. Earlier this year the Swedish workers movement urged Sweden to lead on proposing it; in June President Macron of France promised to champion it on the international stage. Pope Francis has also stated that he believes ecocide should be added to the list of international crimes; he received Stop Ecocide’s Advisory Board member Valérie Cabanes for an audience recently. Last month the newly formed Belgian government pledged to “take diplomatic action to halt ecocide crime”, and two motions on ecocide have recently been submitted to the Swedish parliament, one from the Left Party and one from the Greens/Social Democrats.

The panel will be co-chaired by International lawyer Philippe Sands QC and international judge Justice Florence Mumba. Richard J Rogers, founding partner of Global Diligence LLP and executive director of Climate Counsel will act as co-deputy chair of the panel alongside Kate Mackintosh (executive director of the Promise Institute at UCLA). Other panellists include: Rodrigo Lledó (Chile), director, Baltasar Garzon's International Foundation FIBGAR (Spain); Judge Tuiloma Neroni Slade (Samoa), former ICC judge; Syeda Rizwana Hasan (Bangladesh), director of Bangladesh Environmental Law Association; Prof Charles Jalloh (Sierra Leone), Florida International University / Int. Law Commission; Valérie Cabanes (France), international jurist and human rights expert; Pablo Fajardo (Ecuador), key lawyer in Chevron case, Goldman Prize and CNN Hero Award winner; Prof Christina Voigt (Norway), climate law expert, Univ. of Oslo and Alex Whiting (US), former ICC Prosecutions Co-ordinator, Professor of Practice, Harvard Law School.

According to co-chair Philippe Sands QC, “The time is right to harness the power of international criminal law to protect our global environment - seventy five years ago, ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’ were spoken for the first time, in Nuremberg’s Courtroom 600, and my hope is that this group will be able to draw on experience since that day to forge a definition that is practical, effective and sustainable, and that might attract support to allow an amendment to the ICC Statute to be made. It is a privilege to work with such a fine and representative group, in the shadow and spirit of those who gave us ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’, Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafael Lemkin.”