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planetary heating
Pacific Islands Push ICC to Recognize Ecocide as International Crime
"This is a moment of generational change, one that is needed to safeguard our environment and signal to coming generations that the world is truly serious about doing so," said one legal expert on ecocide.
Sep 10, 2024
Campaigners against ecocide, the destruction of nature, applauded what one leader called a "key moment" in the fight to protect the natural world and communities that are most vulnerable to climate damage on Monday as three Pacific island nations proposed that the International Criminal Court formally recognize the crime.
Vanuatu, which first made a similar proposal in 2019, was joined by Samoa and Fiji in submitting the proposal to the ICC, which was established in 2002 to prosecute cases regarding genocide and crimes against humanity.
"Vanuatu considers it imperative that the international community takes this conversation seriously, and we warmly invite all member states to engage," said Ralph Regenvanu, special envoy for climate change and environment for Vanuatu, in a statement. "Legal recognition of severe and widespread environmental harm holds significant potential to ensure justice and, crucially, to deter further destruction."
The recognition of environmental and ecosystem destruction as a crime could allow the court to prosecute individuals accused of ecocide, such executives of pollution-causing companies whose activities are linked to planetary heating and the sea-level rise and intense storms small island nations increasingly face and officials of governments that continue to emit high levels of greenhouse gases.
Philippe Sands, a law professor at University College London and co-chair of an expert panel on the legal definition of ecocide, said that as drafted, the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, "cannot adequately address environmental harms" and must be changed to reflect "a growing recognition that severe environmental destruction deserves the same legal accountability as other grave international crimes that focus on the human."
"People clearly understand that the most severe forms of environmental destruction harm all of us, and that there is real deterrent potential in creating personal criminal liability for top decision-makers."
“There is a manifest gap in the statute of the ICC, and ecocide is now firmly on the agenda, a vital and necessary moment for an effective international law," said Sands. "This is a moment of generational change, one that is needed to safeguard our environment and signal to coming generations that the world is truly serious about doing so."
Sands told The Guardian that he is "100% certain" that ecocide will ultimately be recognized as an international crime, but with the matter tabled for a full discussion by the ICC at a later date, a long deliberation process is expected.
The Pacific nations introduced the proposal at the ICC days after the Global Commons Survey, conducted by Ipsos UK, found that 72% of people in G20 countries believe ecocide should be recognized as a crime.
Jojo Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Stop Ecocide International, said last week that "widespread civil society demand" has driven the European Union to recognize "conduct comparable to ecocide" as a "qualified" offense, and Belgium to adopt ecocide as a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines as high as $1.8 million.
"We're seeing significant policy shifts in favor of ecocide legislation at the domestic, regional, and international levels," said Mehta. "People clearly understand that the most severe forms of environmental destruction harm all of us, and that there is real deterrent potential in creating personal criminal liability for top decision-makers. Damage prevention is always the best policy, which is precisely what ecocide law is about."
Some of the world's biggest polluters, including the United States, China, and Russia, are not member states of the ICC, and could challenge the court's jurisdiction if accused of ecocide—but Mehta said Monday that "by establishing legal consequences, we create a guardrail that compels decision-makers to prioritize safety for people and planet, fundamentally altering how they approach their obligations."
"We also create a route to justice for the worst harms," she said, "whether they occur in times of conflict or in times of peace."
Regenvanu said Vanuatu has prioritized the recognition of ecocide as a crime after suffering significant climate damage for years, with the government already having relocated six towns due to irreversible sea level rise.
"Environmental and climate loss and damage in Vanuatu is devastating our island economy, submerging our territory, and threatening livelihoods. This tragedy is not unique to Vanuatu but is shared by many small island nations that, despite bearing the least responsibility for the crisis, suffer most from its impacts," said Regenvanu. "We urge ICC member states to take note of the very substantial civil society support for this initiative around the world as it moves forward in this crucial discussion."
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Coral Bleaching 'Off the Charts' in Atlantic as NOAA Warns Ocean Going 'Crazy Haywire'
"We had to add additional bleaching alert levels to appropriately categorize just how hot it was," said a coral reefs expert at the agency.
May 17, 2024
The phrase "off the charts" is no exaggeration in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest warning about a global coral bleaching event that scientists have linked to rising ocean temperatures and heat stress.
Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Program, told reporters Thursday that about 60.5% of the world's coral reefs are now experiencing heat stress severe enough to cause bleaching, which can make the reefs more vulnerable to disease and harm the biodiversity they support.
Manzello said at the press briefing that after observing the first months of the coral bleaching event, which began in early 2023, NOAA changed its existing bleaching alert system because conditions were so abnormally warm in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea.
The agency's new bleaching alert system categorizes heat stress for coral reefs on a scale of 1-5, with Alert Level 5 representing ocean heat that could kill "approximately 80% or more of corals on a particular reef," Manzello said.
"We had to add additional bleaching alert levels to appropriately categorize just how hot it was," he said, with Level 5 "analogous to a Category 5 hurricane or cyclone."
"I hate that I have to keep using that word 'unprecedented.'... But, again, we are seeing unprecedented patterns again this year."
The world's oceans, Manzello, said, are going "crazy haywire."
In the Caribbean this year, heat stress off the coasts of Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Colombia are now at levels that in previous years weren't seen until the summer months.
"I hate that I have to keep using that word 'unprecedented,'" Manzello toldThe New York Times. "But, again, we are seeing unprecedented patterns again this year."
The bleaching that took place last year resulted in coral mortality of at least 50% and as high as 93% in reefs off the coast of Huatulco, Mexico, according to a team of Mexican scientists.
In the Atlantic, fossil fuel-driven planetary heating has been exacerbated by El Niño—the natural phenomenon that causes warmer-than-normal ocean surface temperatures—and has caused the "most unprecedented and extreme" bleaching-level heat stress observed in the past year.
Manzello said 99.7% of reef areas in the Atlantic have experienced heat stress that could cause bleaching.
"The Atlantic Ocean has been off the charts," he said.
Scientists have recorded four global bleaching events since 1998 and have linked all of them to warmer ocean temperatures. Since 1950, the world has lost half of its coral reefs, according to a 2021 study.
Along with serving marine life, a quarter of which rely on coral reefs at some point in their life cycles, reefs also protect coasts from storms, whose growing severity in recent years scientists have also linked to planetary heating.
The current bleaching event has affected reefs off the coasts of at least 62 countries and territories.
Scientists earlier this year confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year in human history and the warmest year on record for the world's oceans, which absorb more than 90% of excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions.
"I am very worried about the state of the world's coral reefs," Manzello said. "We are seeing [ocean temperatures] play out right now that are very extreme in nature."
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Outgoing UN Expert Calls for Global Grassroots Movement to Dislodge 'Diesel Mafia'
The growing global recognition of the human right to a clean environment "is up against an even more powerful force in the global economy, a system that is absolutely based on the exploitation of people and nature," said David Boyd.
May 07, 2024
After spending six years traveling the world in his role as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Canadian law professor David Boyd said Tuesday that the growing global recognition of the right to a healthy environment gives him hope—but warned that with a world economy based on exploitation, campaigners face major challenges in ensuring environmental justice for all.
In his final interview as the U.N.'s top expert on the subject, Boyd told The Guardian that during his tenure, the international body's Human Rights Council formally recognized that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a fundamental human right in 2021, and the U.N. General Assembly did the same in 2022.
"These are landmark advances in international human rights," Boyd said in a statement last month.
But with top fossil fuel producers including the United States arguing that the U.N. resolution is not legally binding, and refusing to join 161 other countries in enshrining the right to a healthy environment for their own citizens, Boyd said his experience as special rapporteur has shown him that "this powerful human right is up against an even more powerful force in the global economy, a system that is absolutely based on the exploitation of people and nature."
"I started out six years ago talking about the right to a healthy environment having the capacity to bring about systemic and transformative changes," Boyd told The Guardian. "And unless we change that fundamental [economic] system, then we're just re-shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic."
The environmental law expert said the failure of world leaders to universally agree to a "human rights-based approach" to the climate, biodiversity, and air pollution crises "has absolutely been the Achilles' heel" of international treaties like the Paris climate agreement, with no mechanisms forcing countries to rapidly draw down their greenhouse gas emissions to help avoid planetary heating above 1.5°C.
"It has driven me crazy in the past six years that governments are just oblivious to history. We know that the tobacco industry lied through their teeth for decades. The lead industry did the same. The asbestos industry did the same."
Governments pledged to phase out "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies in 2021, but last year subsidies for the industry had risen by $2 million, hitting $7 trillion.
Fossil fuel and other industry lobbyists are still being welcomed to global summits on plastic pollution and the climate, Boyd pointed out.
"It just absolutely boggles my mind that anybody thinks they have a legitimate seat at the table," said Boyd. "It has driven me crazy in the past six years that governments are just oblivious to history. We know that the tobacco industry lied through their teeth for decades. The lead industry did the same. The asbestos industry did the same. The plastics industry has done the same. The pesticide industry has done the same."
Boyd's criticism "hits the nail on the head," said Mark Dummett, deputy program director of Amnesty International.
Boyd said a global grassroots movement is needed to dislodge "the diesel mafia," his term for "powerful interconnected business and political elites" who "are still becoming wealthy from the existing system."
Organizers must continue using "tools like human rights and public protest and every other tool in the arsenal of change-makers," he advised.
Boyd spent his time as special rapporteur traveling to countries including Portugal, the Maldives, Chile, and Fiji, where he spoke to people directly affected by plastic waste, rising sea levels, air pollution, extreme heat, and other climate impacts.
He went on his final mission to the Maldives, the world's lowest lying country, in April, finding "numerous atolls submerged under water, according to The Guardian.
"These islands are just like jewels scattered across the Indian Ocean, and yet for anyone who understands the science of climate change, it's just a heartbreaking place to visit because of sea level rise, storm surges, coastal erosion, acidification, rising ocean temperatures, and heatwaves," Boyd said of the Maldives, 80% of which scientists have said could be uninhabitable by 2050. "The future is really daunting for people in the Maldives... The climate emergency is an existential threat that overshadows all the other issues."
If people in the Maldives and around the world "don't have a living, healthy planet Earth, then all the other rights are just words on paper," said Boyd.
The outgoing rapporteur said environmental legal groups will likely increasingly file lawsuits against governments that aren't doing their part to mitigate the climate crisis—a tactic that the U.N. Environment Program said last year could be a key driver of change in climate policies.
"I expect in the next three or four years, we will see court cases being brought challenging fossil fuel subsidies in some petro-states," said Boyd. "These countries have said time and time again at the G7, at the G20, that they're phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. It's time to hold them to their commitment. And I believe that human rights law is the vehicle that can do that."
Last month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government violated the human rights of senior citizens by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings and swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
Environmental law expert Astrid Puentes Riaño stepped into Boyd's former role this month, saying she will prioritize "the implementation of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment," following the U.N.'s formal recognition of the right.
The implementation of the right provides "a vital opportunity for greater understanding of the obligations of states to respect, protect, and fulfill this right, as well as the role of non-state actors," she said. "This will be my main task as rapporteur to be implemented through the reports, visits, communications, events and other activities to develop."
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