The ICC are drafting a bill to criminalise ‘ecocide’
Who wins if our planet dies?
Who do we become without our planet? Without flowers to smell, without food to grow and harvest, what becomes of us? Possibly a selfish way to look at environmental degradation but a valid point. If we continue treating the environment as we have been, we may end up with nothing to show for it!
Someone who is certainly impassioned to fight, stand and be a voice for nature’s rights, is Paul Powlesland of Garden Court Chambers. An enthusiastic green campaigner and barrister who graduated Cambridge with a first class law degree, taking on the Goliath like battle for nature.
Just last year prior to the pandemic, Paul boldly lay outside the doors of Slaughter & May. In order to protest against the ‘ecocide’ that Slaughter & May are purportedly cashing in on, via their legal representation of fossil fuel corporations. The fancy city law firm, where partners are believed to take home at least £3 million a year.
‘a lot of money — hundreds of thousands, millions of pounds — to actively assist oil companies to acquire new fields and to exploit them…. It’s effectively taking blood money to fuel the climate crisis.’ — Paul
These words from Paul, exhibit the belief which is fuelling his efforts for environmental rights. It is this passionate need to protect nature, that came across from the talk I heard from him last week. Where for the first time I encountered the idea of rights for nature being just as important as rights for humans.
‘Rights to nature will be what human rights were to the 20th Century’, Paul Powlesland
Needless to say, we have all become acquainted to the term ‘human rights” but Paul argued on the Zoom call last week, that we need to ‘revolutionise’ and give rights to trees, land and nature as a whole. Paul illustrated his point through history. Explaining how rights through human developments have revolutionised our society and the treatment of the citizens therein. In Roman times, he states’ rights were reserved for white, wealthy men, later human rights included women and children and most aggravating to Paul, rights have also been given to companies. Skipping he says, the fundamentals in our eco-system, such as trees.
Further Paul, contrast slavery and the environment. Concluding that exploitation of people through slavery and any form of slave labour, is just as disturbing as the exploitation of nature. He gave a brilliant explanation of how legal minds of olde worked together to change the way people viewed slaves. They, used the legal system to “poke holes in slavery” which ultimately led to a complete change of paradigm in how people perceived slavery. He now urged us as the new legal minds to plead and to poke holes at the relentless exploitation of the environment.
With questions such as;
“Who can be a legal person?”
“Is nature alive? If so what if any right should be given it?”
Unlike persons who can tell of their ordeal’s nature is in most part, voiceless. We sadly only hear the cries of nature, in the form of earthquakes, flooding, or barren lands when our exploitation has gone too far. Up until now that is.
Today as I read through The Economist bulletins, one title grabbed my attention;
Is it time for “ecocide” to become an international crime?
An altogether thought provoking read, especially in the light of the Paul Powlesland talk. The article suggested like Paul had that perhaps now is the time to take these exploitations seriously. And now, 75 years after Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide were coined at Nuremberg, we have a new gathering of the best legal minds. Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow, are co-chairing an expert drafting panel on the legal definition of “ecocide” as a potential international crime, that could sit alongside War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.
“The numerous attacks on the environment and the living conditions of the population are worrying… Recognizing ecocide as an international crime is the most appropriate approach to fight against the impunity of this crime and its perpetrators.” –
Dior Fall Sow, (Senegal) former UN international prosecutor.
This is a pivotal move and one I am sure Paul Powlesland and other environmental lawyers and activist like myself are keen to follow. This has the potential to drastically change the world and the use of its natural resources as we know it. The full extent to criminal liability for ecocide will only be known after approval of the drafts.
I would guess, this would go a long way in stirring up corporate consciousness in relation to their use of the environment, as well as provoking better guardianship for countries that are currently dealing with the consequences of environmental abuse.
‘Nature belongs to no-one, we are guardians of it’, Paul said in closing on his zoom call.
As guardians, is it not part of our responsibility to ensure we observe respectful use of nature and uphold its right so that we pass it on to forth-coming generations?
