Ecocide: Leveraging International Law To Drive Stronger Climate Action

Excerpt from Island Innovation:

Nature is critical to various aspects of life on Earth. From socio-cultural heritage to economic functioning and life supporting ecosystem services, we rely on nature more than we often realize. However, environmental degradation has continued to take place on a massive scale globally as a result of direct human impacts. By damaging nature, we are not only having a negative impact on the environment, but also on ourselves. The need to protect nature must be enshrined in a legal framework that outlines how to discourage, combat, and stop the severe and long-term harm of nature. As such, the need to include ‘ecocide’ within policy and set out appropriate duties and responsibilities for the protection of nature is a major need globally.

Stop Ecocide International is an organization actively leading the movement to make ecocide an international crime, and at this year’s Virtual Island Summit, it hosted a panel in collaboration with the Government of Vanuatu dedicated exclusively to discuss the topic. Moderated by Dr. Christopher Bartlett, the Climate Diplomacy Manager within the Vanuatu government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the event panel comprised of the Honorable Bakoa Kaltongga, Special Envoy on Climate Change for the Pacific, Jojo Mehta, Chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation, Philippe Sands QC from University College London, and Autumn Bordner, an Associate Attorney at Blue Ocean Law.

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