Three Pacific island countries have formally requested the International Criminal Court to recognize “ecocide,” or mass environmental destruction, as an international crime alongside genocide and war crimes.
The proposal, submitted by Vanuatu and co-sponsors Fiji and Samoa on Sept. 9, seeks to amend the ICC’s Rome Statute, which currently allows for the prosecution of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. If successful, ecocide would become the fifth recognized international crime.
“This historic bid by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa to make ecocide an international crime represents our best hope of securing a livable planet for current and future generations,” Monica Lennon, a Scottish politician who introduced an ecocide-prevention bill in Scotland in November 2023, told Mongabay in an email.
Vanuatu, an island nation that has seen devastating effects of climate change, first called for the inclusion of ecocide as a crime at the ICC’s 2019 annual assembly. While not a formal proposal, it triggered discussions around ecocide, Jojo Mehta, co-founder of the Netherlands-based NGO Stop Ecocide International (SEI), told Mongabay over a Zoom call.
In 2021, SEI convened an international panel of lawyers that defined ecocide as “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.”
Since then, several countries have taken steps to include ecocide in their laws. For instance, Belgium has introduced ecocide as a domestic crime, while Chile and France have also added elements of ecocide in their laws. Countries like Scotland, Brazil, Mexico and Peru have proposed ecocide-related bills.
Vanuatu’s formal proposal to the ICC now aims to make ecocide an international crime by amending the Rome Statute, the treaty that undergirds the ICC. “The Rome statute taps into what are considered to be the most serious crimes, the ones that affect the international community as a whole,” Mehta said.
This means individuals, including heads of companies and states, could be prosecuted by the ICC for acts of ecocide, such as large-scale deforestation or industrial pollution, similar to how war crimes and genocide are currently treated. Having an international ecocide law could act as a strong deterrent against severe environmental destruction, which Lennon said is currently lacking.
“There is also the aspect that when a country ratifies something at the International Criminal Court, the likelihood is it will then be included in a similar form in its own domestic legislation as well,” Mehta added.
Vanuatu’s proposal submission will be followed by discussions by member states, although there’s no time limit on the negotiations. “The ICC does not move quickly but when it comes to the climate and nature crises there is no time to waste,” Lennon said. “As well as supporting Vanuatu, Samoa and Fiji at the ICC, countries should work at speed to pass their own ecocide laws.”
Banner image of Deepwater Horizon oil spill by SkyTruth via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
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