ecocide

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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">eco-cide series</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/project/the-fifth-crime/">https://insideclimatenews.org/project/the-fifth-crime/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042021/climate-crisis-ecocide-vanuatu-the-fifth-crime/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042021/climate-crisis-ecocide-vanuatu-the-fifth-crime/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Across the globe, climate change is disrupting the reliable seasonal rhythms that have sustained human life for millenia, while hurricanes, floods and other climate-driven disasters have forced more than 10 million people from their homes in the last six months. Fossil fuel pollution has killed 9 million people annually in recent years, according to a study in Environmental Research, more than tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS combined. </div><div>
</div><div>One in four mammals are threatened with extinction. For amphibians, it’s four in 10.</div><div>
</div><div>Damage to nature has become so extensive and widespread around the world that many environmentalists speak of ecocide to describe numerous environmentally devastated hot spots: </div><div>
</div><div>Chernobyl, the Ukrainian nuclear plant that exploded in 1986 and left the now-deserted area dangerously radioactive;</div><div>The tar sands of northern Canada, where toxic waste pits and strip mines have replaced 400 square miles of boreal forest and boglands;</div><div>The Gulf of Mexico, site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 people, spilled at least 168 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean over 87 days and killed countless marine mammals, sea turtles, fish and migratory birds; </div><div>
</div><div>The Amazon, where rapid deforestation encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro prompted Joe Biden, during his presidential campaign, to propose a $20 billion rescue plan and threaten the Brazilian leader with economic sanctions.</div><div>
</div><div>Ecocide Hotspots</div><div>The campaign to criminalize ecocide is now moving from the fringe of advocacy into global diplomacy, pushed by a growing recognition among advocates and many political leaders that climate change and environmental causes are tied inherently to human rights and social justice.</div><div>
</div><div>The effort remains a long shot and is at least years from fruition, international and environmental law experts say. Advocates will have to navigate political tensions over whether national governments or the international community have ultimate control over natural resources. And they’ll likely face opposition from countries with high carbon emissions and deep ties to industrial development. </div><div>
</div><div>The environmentalists must also figure out how criminal law would address climate change, which has been driven by practices like burning coal and gasoline that are not only legal, but central to the global economy.</div><div>
</div><div>The campaign for an ecocide crime, however, is about more than law. Jojo Mehta, who launched the Stop Ecocide campaign in 2017, describes it as a moral and practical issue as well. </div><div>
</div><div>“We use criminal law to draw moral lines,” Mehta said. “We say something’s not accepted, your murder is not acceptable. And so, simply putting mass damage and destruction of nature below that red line actually makes a huge difference, and it will make a difference to the people that are financing what is going on.”...</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/04/16/polly-higgins-lawyer-taking-big-oil-s-crimes-against-humanity">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/04/16/polly-higgins-lawyer-taking-big-oil-s-crimes-against-humanity</a><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Polly Higgins is a woman on the hunt. And you get the sense that, after decades of working towards holding powerful polluters to account, her prey may finally be in sight.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>When you're looking at any crime, you're looking at who are your suspects,” she tells me in a soft Scottish accent that belies the hard truths she regularly delivers. “Within a corporate context, you're looking at <span class="caps">CEO</span>s and directors. Within a state context, it is ministers and Heads of State.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>They're the ones where final responsibility rests for making the decisions that can adversely impact many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and indeed — in the case of climate crime — billions of people.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate activism is surging, with the <a href="https://desmog.co.uk/node/13549" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">school strikers</a> chastising older generations for failing them, and <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/11/20/extinction-rebellion-uk-ghana-and-us-climate-activists-take-civil-disobedience-world-wide" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Extinction Rebellion</a> hitting headlines with <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/09/climate-change-means-real-death-real-blood-extinction-rebellion-paints-downing-st-red" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">its creative direct actions</a> in the name of “climate justice”.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Higgins has her own, more institutional approach to what she agrees is a looming climate crisis: making it illegal to deliberately destroy the environment. She is calling for the <b>International Criminal Court in the Hague to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> recognise ‘ecocide’ as a crime against humanity, alongside genocide and war crimes.</span> She explains:</b></font></p><blockquote open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p class="rtecenter" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>There's a growing recognition that a lot of campaigning is not getting us where we need to go, and just saying fossil fuel extraction should stop is not enough. It has to be criminalised.</b>”</font></p></blockquote><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s why, in 2010, Higgins proposed <a href="https://eradicatingecocide.com/the-law/what-is-ecocide/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">an amendment to the Rome Statute</a> — the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. It defined ecocide as “the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some countries, such as the <span class="caps">UK</span>, have national climate change laws that set legally-binding emissions reduction targets. And many have regulations that are meant to protect the environment from corporate activities that could destroy ecosystems.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But none currently have sufficient legislation to allow companies to be taken to court, and treated as criminals, for damaging the environment purely for profit.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Higgins points out: “We have laws that are protecting dangerous industrial activities, such as fracking, despite the fact that there is an abundance of evidence that it is hugely harmful in terms of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and the catastrophic trauma it can cause communities that are impacted by it.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if there was an ecocide law, it would allow lawyers and campaigners to argue that such polluting activities were “a potential crime against humanity.”</font></p><hr open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-image: initial; margin: 1.5em 0px;" /><p class="rtecenter" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qfUamcJgAOA" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog's interview with Polly Higgins</a> video]</font></p><p class="rtecenter" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Shell Knew</b></font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That may seem like a lofty ambition, particularly when the charge is being led by a small team from a one-room office in the quaint, pastoral and pleasant surroundings of Stroud. But renewed activism has shown there is a growing appetite to hold to account those responsible for the current and future impacts of climate change.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A recent <a href="https://influencemap.org/report/How-Big-Oil-Continues-to-Oppose-the-Paris-Agreement-38212275958aa21196dae3b76220bddc" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> from thinktank InfluenceMap showed the world’s five largest listed oil and gas companies <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/22/paris-oil-exxon-chevron-bp-total-shell-billion-climate-lobbying-advertising-influencemap" style="text-decoration-line: none;">spent more than $1 billion</a> lobbying to prevent climate change regulations — all while running public relations campaigns aimed at maintaining public support for climate action.</b></font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the European Parliament last month held a hearing into <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/20/they-have-lied-decades-european-parliament-scrutinise-exxon-s-climate-science-denial" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Exxon’s decades-long support of climate science denial</a> and lobbying, which followed fresh media revelations around <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/shellknew" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Shell’s decades-old and hidden knowledge</a> of the harm its products cause the climate.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Higgins is currently targeting Shell in particular. At the end of last year, her <span class="caps">NGO</span>, Mission Lifeforce, went to The Hague to announce that it would be <a href="https://www.missionlifeforce.org/news/2018/12/7/top-shell-bosses-named-key-suspects-at-launch-of-climate-ecocide-investigation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">undertaking an initial legal analysis</a> to establish whether Shell could be guilty of ecocide.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She concedes that making that case won’t be easy.</font></p><blockquote open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p class="rtecenter" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>For us to establish that Shell — and indeed a whole industry — has undertaken a modus operandi that constitutes an inhumane act, there are a number of elements that we have to satisfy legally, one of them being intent.”</font></p></blockquote><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the task will be difficult, Shell’s own actions could help to take it down. Citing the work of <a href="https://decorrespondent.nl/5563/shellknew-in-deze-interne-documenten-kun-je-zelf-lezen-wat-shell-sinds-1986-weet-over-klimaatverandering/613092667-fad068b1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">De Correspondent</a>, the <a href="http://climateaccountability.org/carbonmajors.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Accountability Institute</a>, and <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/shellknew" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog</a>, she says there are “a number of key points over time that suggest that Shell has decided to move forward with their industrial activities in the full knowledge of just how dangerous they are.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She highlights <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/shellknew" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently-released documents</a> that show Shell’s own internal scientific analysis revealed the dangers its products posed to the climate in the 1980s. Despite this, the company continued to <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/climate-files-climate-denial-documents/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fund groups that pushed climate science denial</a> and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/20/exclusive-company-docs-show-shell-secretly-studied-climate-risks-10-years-warning-investors" style="text-decoration-line: none;">failed to warn shareholders</a> of the risks for decades.</font></p><hr open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-image: initial; margin: 1.5em 0px;" /><p class="rtecenter" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read DeSmog's <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/shellknew" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ShellKnew investigation</a> in full]</font></p><hr open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-image: initial; margin: 1.5em 0px;" /><h3 open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motivation</font></h3><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It has taken years to get to what Higgins describes as “the first step” of holding these multi-billion dollar corporations to account. So what drives her to keep going — to keep taking on these hugely powerful opponents?</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>I grew up in the countryside. I grew up loving the beauty of the wilderness of the west coast of Scotland. I spent my childhood holidaying in Wales. So I think it greatly informed what I'm doing now,” she says.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>It's just part and parcel of who I am, and I think if you fundamentally care about people and the planet then it's something you're just not going to be able to walk away from.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She’s motivated by protecting the people affected by major polluters, just as much as she’s driven to protect the planet itself. That means facing up to some big political powers as well as Big Oil.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An international ecocide law “is not something that most western world governments will sign off on,” she admits. “This is something that small islands that are most adversely impacted will want to have legal redress for, which kind of plays into the David and Goliath aspect of it.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Although it will impact the whole of humanity, those on the frontline tend to be the small island states such as Tuvalu and Vanuatu. And, for them, climate collapse is an existential humanitarian crisis. So they're seeking ways to significantly abate the primary drivers of climate breakdown.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s why she’s targeting the International Criminal Court, where each member has one vote, rather than more cumbersome and potentially unjust institutions like the <span class="caps">UN</span> Framework Convention on Climate Change, where small countries can find themselves crowded out or bullied. Higgins sees a more permanent law, rather than delicate political solutions, as the best way to give calls for climate action some teeth.</font></p><h3 open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legacy</font></h3><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A few weeks after we speak, Higgins is diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer. It makes her efforts to create something more solid — a law, rather than a political solution — seem all the more pertinent.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pushing for ecocide to be acknowledged as a crime is her way of “recognising that there's a current absence of proper political leadership on this issue,” and “where political will fails then the law can prevail.”</font></p><blockquote open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p class="rtecenter" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Ultimately all of this is preventable and that's really what ecocide law is about.” </font></p></blockquote><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>It is fundamentally unjust to sit back and watch the destruction occurring,” she says.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Higgins is very good at explaining why an ecocide law could be effective, in theory. But there remain few mainstream campaign groups or political parties that back her cause. The <span class="caps">UK</span>’s Green Party in 2012 <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/ecocide-law-backed-green-party-england-wales.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">passed a resolution</a> giving “wholehearted support for an international law of ecocide”. No other party has yet followed the Greens’ lead.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Higgins says that’s in part because hers is a movement that doesn’t wholly rely on public awareness “because it's not the number one issue of concern,” she says.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, she has worked on “discerning who are my allies in this, and how to take this forward working with them behind the scenes.”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That doesn’t mean public support for the idea isn’t useful — “it does help to have public support without a doubt,” she acknowledges — it just may not be necessary. If the International Criminal Court agrees with her, her job is done.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s why her focus is on forging a new tool for campaigners — an ecocide law — rather than courting them.</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As she says: “Where do you go when <span class="caps">NGO</span> campaigns have failed? Where do you go when countless petitions to governments get you nowhere?”</font></p><p open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Her work has laid the groundwork for a new answer to those questions: For decades, people have taken to the streets. Thanks to Higgins’ work, perhaps one day, they will be able to take the prime suspects in climate atrocities to the criminal courts.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div></div></div>