Ecocide – Legal Revolution or Symbolism?

In this article for Völkerrechtsblog, PhD students Romina Pezzot and Jan-Phillip Graf offer some reflections on #ecocide as a legal revolution and a symbolic concept. Six key points below:

1. “Ecocide would be the first ‘non-anthropocentric’ international crime.”

2. “Ecocide would apply during times of peace and armed conflict alike, thus becoming a counterweight to international criminal law’s bias towards criminality during armed conflicts.”

3. “There is a real chance, however, that the work of the independent expert panel may be the necessary starting point for the UN organs to seriously consider developing an international crime of ecocide.”

4. “The adoption of the crime of ecocide would also be revolutionary as an alignment between international environmental law and international criminal law.”

5. “The symbolic power of an international crime also contains an important pre-deterrence effect that shapes the decision-making of actors even before a crime is adopted or prosecuted.”

6. “Even if the effective individual and corporate prosecution of ecocide is years or decades away, corporate actors might already start to re-think their business models today, to avoid becoming international criminals in the future.”

Read more here: https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/ecocide-legal-revolution-or-symbolism/