ugc_banner

International lawyers propose 'ecocide' to criminalise environmental destruction

WION Web Team
New Delhi, Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Feb 13, 2021, 02:12 PM IST
main img
FILE Photograph:(AFP)

Story highlights

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has supported the implementation of the law and French President Emmanuel Macron have also hinted at incorporating ecocide into the domestic law of the country

Several international law experts are seeking to approve a new crime, "ecocide", which will allow authorities to take action against environmental destruction. 

These experts plan to submit a draft report of their law to the International Criminal Court's governing body, reports ABC News. 

Watch | 

If approved, environmental crimes will become ICC's fifth jurisdictional responsibility, some of the others being, genocide, crimes against humanity, aggression crimes and war crimes. 

The group says that climate change has no border and damage to local ecosystems can have massive global consequences. 

"In this day and age, it's no longer possible to say that one is destroying large swathes of nature without realising what one is doing," Jojo Mehta, a member of this group, says. 

She and an expert panel assembled by her, want governments, companies and individuals should be held accountable for the damage to the environment done under their nose. 

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has supported the implementation of the law and French President Emmanuel Macron have also hinted at incorporating ecocide into the domestic law of the country. 

Calling the environmental damages "sins of ecology", Pope Francis has said that his understanding of ecocide is the "massive contamination of air, land and water resources, the large-scale destruction of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem."