Official ASP 2023 Side Event

As discussion develops around inclusion of “ecocide” under the remit of the Rome Statute, this panel examines the relevance of the 2021 Independent Expert Panel definition to contexts where severe environmental damage is being suffered in different ways: small island states, states involved in armed conflict, indigenous territories and the ocean.

Official COP28 Side Event

Examining the power of international law to frame the roadmap for a safe planetary future - by deterring severe climate harm, protecting vital biodiversity and its guardians, accelerating fulfilment of Paris Agreement targets and guiding just transition.

Part of the 2023 Arctic Circle Assembly.

This session examines the relevance of international criminal law and the potential protective power, for the Arctic and elsewhere, of recognising “ecocide” as a crime; as well as tracing the rapid global progress of the “ecocide wave” of legislation being discussed and developed at national, regional and international levels.

Whales are a keystone species in the ocean and an important driver of carbon sequestration, helping keep the climate cooler for Londoners. But their habitat is now under threat. London is contributing to that vulnerability through fossil fuel use, marine pollution and other harmful policies. Yet the city is also an epicenter of climate action and has the potential to play a major role in the protection of whales by, for example, promoting the inclusion of ecocide as an international crime.

Enjoy this deep dive discussion together with a panel of experts on the rapid global developments toward recognition of “ecocide” (severe and widespread or long-term environmental harm) in criminal law, at national, regional and international levels; the implications as well as benefits for the finance sector as this legislation approaches.

This event explores recent rapid developments in the progress toward ecocide legislation at national, regional and international levels and the benefits for a just and resilient transition to a sustainable future for all.

As part of their efforts to raise awareness, Youth for Ecocide Law organised this Earth Day webinar on April 22nd, 2023 as a venue for listeners around the globe to learn about ecocide law, the growing youth movement, and how the push to criminalize ecocide could support many other youth-driven environmental justice campaigns.

This event will discuss the relevance and benefits of the fast-growing ecocide law initiative in a variety of contexts pertinent to the protection of our planet’s water systems, drawing together perspectives from youth, indigenous voices, policy-making, law and sustainable business.

What is missing to prevent severe contamination of & damage to marine ecosystems? Existing environmental protections are often not adhered to or are poorly enforced. Many states and sectors of civil society are speaking out in support of stronger legal frameworks & accountability.

As a growing group of organisations, changemakers & influencers join forces to support this initiative in a new network Ocean for Ecocide Law, this event will discuss its relevance & benefits in a variety of contexts pertinent to the protection of the ocean, drawing together perspectives from climate-vulnerable states, youth, indigenous, policy-making, law & sustainability leaders.

This webinar examines how a new crime of ecocide can strengthen existing environmental laws and safeguards, help create a level playing field for our food producers and preserve the soil and land for future generations.

The farming community and landworkers are on the front line in the effort to conserve the natural world and see at first hand the damage being done. Whilst dominant food production and resources extraction models often cause severe harm to the Earth, outsourcing the true costs to nature, a growing number of farmers, foresters, growers and land-based workers are taking it upon themselves to be part of the solution, adopting regenerative methods that work with nature rather than against it.

What is missing to stimulate the collective change required to protect our future on this beautiful planet? This lunchtime panel event held alongside the World Economic Forum meetings on 19th January 2023 explains how legal recognition of “ecocide” (severe and either widespread or long-term harm to nature) at the international level can create an outer-boundary guardrail, to safeguard the living world by deterring and preventing the worst harms, while leveling the playing field, stimulating innovation and stabilizing financial, operational and reputational risk. Held in the beautiful Lan Space, upstairs at the Rätia Centre on the Promenade in Davos, Switzerland.

The future of the Amazon and its Indigenous peoples is more threaten than ever. Even though the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has brought hope, the challenges remain enormous in a deeply polarized country. But it’s not all up to Brazil. The fate of the Amazon rainforest is a concern for the entire world and will require support from global citizens if we want to stop the catastrophic loss of biodiversity. The new administration has pledge to urgently demarcate and protect all indigenous territories. This will only be achieved if Western countries cooperate and if Ecocide is recognize as an international crime.

By recognising ecocide at the International Criminal Court, key decision makers can be held to account. Acting as a powerful deterrent against mass destruction of the environment, such a law could create lasting protection for vital ecosystems and life on earth as well as justice for those most threatened. At the same time it would raise business standards, levelling the playing field and stabilising operational and reputational risk, rebalancing demand and accelerating corporate practice toward strategic positive change.

Recognizing “ecocide” - severe and either widespread or long-term harm to nature - as a crime at the international level could provide a protective and preventive legal guardrail that is currently missing. It would set an outer boundary to deter and sanction the worst threats and harms to the environment, while reframing and supporting the guardianship of nature.

In this panel we join these voices to discuss a legal tool that we consider necessary for the protection and care of Nature, ancestral territories and biodiversity: the inclusion of the crime of ecocide in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, so that those who cause the most serious damage to ecosystems are placed at the same ethical and legal level as those who commit the worst crimes worldwide.

At this time of environmental and human crisis, recognizing that Nature - Mother Earth - is a living being made up of numerous ecosystems and with rights is essential to stop the devastation and exploitation to which she is being subjected.

As you will see in the deliberations of this panel, giving rights to nature and establishing an international ecocide law for its protection are two sides of the same coin and progress on both issues are examined and discussed.

Youth have been the driving force behind climate action for the past few years. This discussion with young land defenders and climate activists not only aims to discover why, but what is next? What do youth activists envision for the next phase of action? What does young female identifying leadership look like in this movement, and why is it important right now? How does Ecocide Law fit into this vision and what can each of us do to protect the Earth and ensure a livable future?

Official side event of the 21st Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, The Hague.

There is strong relevance to the ICC’s remit of the inclusion of ecocide within the scope of the Rome Statute. This is being recognised and discussed by a growing number of States Parties, as well as by the Court itself, as acknowledged during the 20th anniversary conference on 1st July of this year.

This side event examines the rapid global progress of this discussion, the importance of the consensus legal definition of ecocide (Independent Expert Panel, June 2021) in that progress, and the potential for the ICC to play a decisive role in addressing the greatest challenge of our time.

Making “ecocide” - severe and either widespread or long-term harm to nature - a crime at the could provide a legal guardrail to steer us back from the precipice by setting an outer boundary to deter, prevent and sanction the worst threats to ecosystems which are a root cause of climate change.

Meanwhile, a clear legal advisory opinion on the responsibilities of states with respect to climate change could set out what citizens should expect from their policy-makers and why.

Learn about how these avenues can frame the duties and responsibilities that could bridge to a liveable world for the children of all species, including our own.

Climate crisis directly threatens the physical and cultural integrity, and economic functioning, of island nations. However the islands have a very real collective power which can curb the destructive practices exacerbating climate change. This power is at the level of international law.

This will act as a powerful brake on harmful extractive practices and a much-needed incentive for strategic change and innovation. Thus, together, the islands can be a powerful global force for the protection of each other, and of all life on Earth.

A legal definition of ecocide has been drafted by an international team of legal experts and is a subject of discussion in 19 ICC member states at parliamentary and/or government level; we anticipate that it will be tabled for discussion at the ICC in the near future.

This session will look at the progress of this legal initiative and how it can deter reckless destruction, acting as a guide rail to foster healthier and more sustainable practices.

Este evento se realizá en español con el fin de dar voz a los pueblos de América Latina, una vasta región del mundo en donde el ecocidio está presente en una variedad de formas y afecta directamente el modo de vida de la población y la supervivencia del mundo natural.

Modera: Mindahi Bastida Participantes (en vivo): Patricia Gualinga, Dalia Marquez, Fernanda Poblete, Maite Mompó Participantes (en vídeo): Marcelo Zaiduni, Francisco Vera, Rosa Darrigo. Y más voces desde la Amazonía.

Featuring Magnus Manhammar, Owen Gaffney, Mindahi Bastida, Dalia Fernanda Márquez Añez, Nnimmo Bassey, Jojo Mehta, Patricia Gualinga and Andrés Ingi Jónsson and moderated by Katie Surma, from Inside Climate News.

Recognition of an international crime of ecocide could be the powerful strategic tool that has been missing, creating the preventive guardrail needed to deter severe harms, strengthen existing laws, and help redirect policy and funds towards a safe and peaceful future on a healthy planet.

A conversation between special guests Ralph Chami, Steven Donziger and Jojo Mehta, with a pre-recorded intervention by Lynne Twist.

Moderated by: Katie Surma, Journalist, Inside Climate News

Featuring a filmed intervention from Chief Raoni Metuktire (Kayapo people, Brazil), Nobel Peace Prize nominee, introduced by Gert Bruch, Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians / Planete Amazone and a high level audience discussion initiated by President Tarja Halonen, former president of Finland.

Youth advocates from Norway, Japan, Venezuela and Sweden shared about why they believe in the importance of criminalising ecocide, and what would change in their field of work if it became illegal to cause severe environmental harm.

They also expressed the main challenges for implementing ecocide law in their respective countries, and how Global North industrial activities impact Global South communities. At the end, we opened the floor for other youth participants to take part in the discussion, inviting them to share about their dreams and visions for the future, and to imagine what a world without ecocide would look like.

This event was organised by Youth for Ecocide Law with support from Stop Ecocide International, Stop Ecocide Foundation, End Ecocide Sweden.

An official virtual side event to the UN Ocean Conference.

We are dependent on healthy marine and coastal ecosystems for billions of livelihoods around the world, as well as regulation of weather and climate. When the oceans lose their regenerative capacity, we face profound, even existential crisis. Meanwhile existing laws are proving inadequate to deter and protect from the destructive side effects of many industrial practices and exploratory extractive projects. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Find out how this powerful legal initiative can protect key marine ecosystems into the future, deterring severe threats, transforming our relationship with the oceans and protecting our own place on our planetary home.

Ecocide: a fifth crime defined (English version) - official ICC side event 7th Dec 2021 (07/12/2021)

An historic event co-hosted by three of the world's most climate-vulnerable states, Vanuatu, Samoa and Bangladesh: the presentation of the legal definition of ecocide as a 5th international crime, in the context of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

With additional diplomatic intervention from: His Excellency William Roelants de Stappers, Ambassador of Belgium to The Hague

Co-sponsored by: Republic of Vanuatu, Independent, State of Samoa, People's Republic of Bangladesh , in association with Stop Ecocide Foundation, Institute for Environmental Security, The Hague Peace Projects. Organized by Stop Ecocide International.

An inspiring and informative conversation around the newly emerged legal definition of ecocide. A densely-packed and lively discussion between Richard Rogers, Deputy Co-Chair of the legal drafting panel, David Lammy, UK Shadow Justice Minister and Jojo Mehta, Chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation.

Global press briefing on the legal definition of “ecocide”, as drafted by the expert panel of international lawyers convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation and co-chaired by Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow, as a potential international crime that could sit alongside War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.

From the Grassroots to the Courts: How criminalizing ecocide could benefit frontline defenders?
Co-hosted by Stop Ecocide Canada & RAVEN Trust.

From the Arctic, to the West and the East coasts of Canada, the guest speakers share stories from the front lines of climate change, expressing the entanglement of food sovereignty, the complexities with access to traditional territories, and the importance of self-determination. They tell legends, assayed the Western power structures, drew lines in the sand about the ongoing colonialism, and call upon the audience to take a stand. We had the honour to receive: Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham) (Wet'suwet'en Nation), Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm (Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation), Melissa Mollen Dupuis (Innu community of Ekuanitshit). The event was moderated by Suzanne Dhaliwal.

Crimes against Nature through the lens of Indigenous Sovereignty.
Co-hosted by Stop Ecocide Canada and RAVEN Trust.

Focusing on the legal assessment of how an international law of ecocide would uphold Indigenous governance and sovereignty.
We had the hour to receive: Coast Salish lawyer Robert Morales, Lakota Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre (NDP) Leah Gazan, Indigenous Lawyer Merle Alexander is a member and hereditary chief of Kitasoo Xai'xais First Nation and Jojo Mehta, Chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation. The event was be moderated by Jeffrey Nicholls, RAVEN’s board president and a member of the Raven Clan of the Tsimshian Nation.

Ecocide as an international crime: Key considerations.

Official side event of the 19th Session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), December 2020.
For the second consecutive year, the Republic of Vanuatu co-hosted an official ICC side event with us, the Stop Ecocide Foundation, on the subject of ecocide.
In association the Institute for Environmental Security, this excellent panel event featured renowned international lawyer (and Co-chair of the ecocide drafting panel) Philippe Sands, as well as Kate Mackintosh of the Promise Institute at UCLA, MEP Marie Toussaint and former ICC judge Tuiloma Neroni Slade. Superbly moderated by the BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding.

The dstruction of ecosystems and its impact on indigenous communities.

This collaborative panel saw the moral and judicial values of the ICC as key to addressing the most serious international crimes, including the possible future crime of ecocide.
It was an honour to welcome Nina Gualinga, indigenous and environmental rights defender from the Sarayaku people in Ecuador, with Wouter Veening of the Institute for Environmental Security, Patrick Alley of Global Witness, Rhavena Moreira of the Center for Climate Crime Analysis and Charlie Holt of Greenpeace International. Co-hosted by Foundation Earth and Green Transparency

Jojo Mehta is interviewed at the Swedish Parliament, Oct 8th, 2020. An Open Council with the Mother Earth Delegation, Parliamentarians, faith leaders and Stop Ecocide International.
Video: Tommy Gärdh, VisionaryFilm

Wisdom-keepers of the Original Nations, youth activists and changemakers acknowledge the challenges humankind is facing; the responsibilities that lie behind these challenges; and ways that consciousness and laws must change to transform our relationship with Nature from one of harm (ecocide) to one of harmony.

With: Grandmother Jyoti - Founder of The Fountain and Center for Sacred Studies, Shawna Bluestar Newcomb, Loretta Afraid Of Bear Cook, Chief Oren Lyons Faithkeeper of The Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, Steven T. Newcomb Shawnee, Lenape, Mindahi Bastida, Otomi Toltec - Mexico, Anton Foley – Fridays For Future Tove Lönneborg - Chair, Fältbiologerna – Nature and Youth Sweden, Gustaf Zachrisson, Founder of the Swedish Youth Network for Biodiversity, Jojo Mehta, co-founder of Stop Ecocide International, Pella Thiel, Chair, End Ecocide Sweden. Moderator: Ken Kitatani