Plus: What's it like being a young climate activist online
| | | | Hey readers, this week we explored calls for “ecocide” to be recognized as an international crime against peace...
What if the CEOs of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies ended up on trial in The Hague for their role in the climate crisis? Or Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, for the crisis unfolding in the Amazon?
That’s what a group of lawyers and activists is calling for. They are fighting for the formal recognition of the crime of ecocide – defined as the mass damage or destruction of natural living systems – which would hold government ministers and corporate CEOs criminally responsible for the environmental damage they caused. And the campaign that started in earnest over a decade ago is now gaining support, including from the pope.
What do you think? We'd love to hear from you. Cheers, Laura and Kyla |
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| | | More than a decade ago, British lawyer Polly Higgins quit her high-flying job and sold her house. She wanted the time and money to throw herself into campaigning for a law she, and many others, believed could change the world and give us a vital tool to tackle climate change.
Higgins was fighting for “ecocide” to be recognized as an international crime against peace. Defined as the mass damage or destruction of natural living systems, the crime would impose a duty of care on individuals not to destroy the environment and would hold government ministers and corporate CEOs criminally responsible for the environmental damage they caused.
The aim: to close a gap in the law, which allows the perpetrators of large-scale environmental crimes to avoid accountability. The method: to add ecocide to the list of crimes prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (the ICC) in The Hague.
Earlier this year Higgins died from cancer at the age of 50, but not before she got to see a new generation of activists pick up her torch, with the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion demanding that ecocide be recognized as a crime.
Her global crusade, Stop Ecocide: Change the Law, continues to fight on under the leadership of its co-founder, Jojo Mehta. And now, one of Higgins’ final efforts is starting to become a reality. |
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| | | | | | 20 Million People Have Fled Their Homes Because of 'Climate Chaos' Since 2008: Oxfam [HuffPost]
Florida Keys Deliver A Hard Message: As Seas Rise, Some Places Can't Be Saved [The New York Times]
Beached Sperm Whale Found With 220 Pounds Of Trash In Its Stomach [HuffPost]
How A Small British Town Used Social Connections To Make Residents Happier And Healthier [Quartz]
New York Just Introduced Meatless Mondays in City Jails [The New Food Economy] |
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