Ecocide

Most of us are probably familiar with terms such as suicide, homicide, infanticide, patricide, genocide and other similar terms for acts of atrocity, all of which have legal definitions that are recognised around the world.

In the 1970s, an American biologist, Arthur Galston, coined the term ‘ecocide’ in his campaign to stop the use of Agent Orange to defoliate large tracts of land during the Vietnam war.

More than twenty years later, Pauline ‘Polly’ Higgins, a Scottish barrister asked herself, “What would it take to create a legal duty of care for the Earth?” She saw the need to hold perpetrators to account for the long-term damage to the environment.

Over the years, various legal bodies in a wide number of countries have attempted to introduce laws to protect the natural environment from wilful destruction.

In June 2021, an independent panel of top international lawyers drafted a definition of ecocide: 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. (This definition came 75 years after the terms ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’ were coined at Nuremberg)

The definition is part of an ongoing effort by Stop Ecocide International to have the crime of ecocide recognized as the fifth core crime of the International Criminal Court.

It cannot be denied that our natural environment is being slowly devastated by the actions of developers, corporations AND governments (at all levels) with weak, compromised or unheeded rules or regulations.

Lane Cove Council's solution to an act of ecocide (Credit: The Guardian)

Australia is number 5 on the list of the world’s worst deforestation countries (the only western nation in the top 10) and we also have one of the highest rates of animal extinctions. In the meantime, our environment minister is struggling to produce legislation to establish an Environment Protection Agency.

Let’s hope our planet is resilient enough to survive.