SPAIN: ecological transition committee of parliament votes a motion to recognise ecocide as an international crime

On Wednesday 11th May The Ecological Transition Committee of the Spanish Congress of Deputies passed a motion (Proposición No de Ley, PNL) urging the government to promote the recognition of ecocide as an international crime, and also to consider including ecocide in the Penal Code.

In December 2020, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress also passed a motion along the same lines. On this occasion, the proposal was put forward by the Parliamentary Group of Unidas Podemos-En Comú Podem-Galicia en Común, and passed with 19 votes in favour, 5 against and 12 abstentions.

The President of the Committee, Juan López de Uralde (pictured), who defended the motion, said in his speech that “we have suffered enormous environmental aggressions in Spain that have gone unpunished". He also pointed out the need to recognise ecocide as a global crime, as we are "very used to" environmental crimes going unpunished.

In the Explanatory Memorandum to the motion, it is stated that:

"The aim is to make ecocide the fifth serious crime and to bring it under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Serious crimes against the environment would be in the same category as war crimes or crimes against humanity and they can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC)".    

The motion, based in part on the narrative of the international Stop Ecocide campaign, also takes up the legal definition of Ecocide, drafted by an Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation made, and it notes that:

"...a new technique is needed for the creation of crimes against the environment that really guarantee the protection of the protected subject and the punishment of whoever damages it, whether intentionally or culpably".

During the debate generated among the parliamentary groups, several ideas have been put forward such as the need for the crime of ecocide to be global in order to avoid displacement of environmental damage to zones or areas with more permissive environmental regulation.

The motion states:

"Congress urges the Government to study a policy of promoting the amendment of the Rome Statute as a way to include the recognition of ecocide as an international crime, as well as to assess the implementation of procedural and criminal reforms consistent with this objective in our domestic law."