Planet ... the Ecosystem
Introduction to Ecocide

TEDxExeter - Polly Higgins - Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace

COMMENTARY
In the video there is reference to the fact that current rule of law (presumably UK company law) requires that corporate executives put profit for investors as the top priority in the way in which the business of the company is carried on. I have had a suspicion that this was the case ever since Bob Diamond of Barclays was so very clear on this matter ... but, as I have written elsewhere and more than once, this is a situation where inappropriate self interest and rule of law fit well while society and the environment are discounted.

The initiative being developed by Polly Higgins will have a stong legal foundation ... it needs an equally strong system of metrics to make transparency meaningful. Get the metrics right, and it will be a whole lot easier to get the incentioves right and to hold people to account.
Peter Burgess

TEDxExeter - Polly Higgins - Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace

Our aim is to stop the extensive damage to the environment and people’s lives. In order to do this we have proposed that the United Nations make Ecocide the fifth Crime Against Peace – alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. Ecocide is the missing fifth crime – it is a crime against humanity, against current and future generations, and against all life on Earth.

It is already an international crime to destroy the earth during war-time, but, incredibly during peace-time it is not. In fact at least ten countries have domestic Ecocide laws in place. The University of London’s 2012 report “Ecocide is the missing fifth Crime Against Peace” revealed that making Ecocide a crime was examined within the UN for decades before being shelved at the last minute in 1996. It is a legal loophole that Ecocide during peace time is not an international crime. It is our aim to close this legal loophole.

In March 2010 international barrister and award winning author Polly Higgins proposed into the United Nations a legal definition and a draft proposal to make Ecocide the fifth Crime Against Peace. The definition submitted is “extensive damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.” Read the full Ecocide Act here.

All that is needed to make Ecocide the fifth Crime Against Peace is an amendment to the Rome Statute; this is the statute that sets out the other four Crimes Against Peace. It only takes one party to the Rome Statute to call for an amendment for this document to be reviewed. When put to the vote, it requires a further eighty signatories to agree for Ecocide to made an international crime.

Once the law is passed, there will be a transition phase of five years to allow for subsidies to be re-directed and businesses to adapt to become leaders in the green economy.