Quid Ecocide ? A Human Rights Perspective over an Emerging Crime

• In Event: Green Criminology #1 - Ecocide and Environmental Governance

Abstract

In the past decade, climate change became one of the most debated topics, both in the relevant professional environments and by the general public. It is probably less known that, hand in hand with climate change, experts are pointing out the fact that Earth may have entered the sixth major extinction. Differently from the previous ones, the current extinction is mainly – if not exclusively – attributed to the impact of human activities and it may generate effects that are difficult, or even impossible to assess.

It is common knowledge that, though sometimes subjected to scientific controversy, these complex phenomena triggered a legal reaction at the international level. While the international treaties and other international instruments on environment protection and climate change are mostly known, the importance of this matter, linked to the very existence of the human race, reverberated to other branches of international law. From the perspective of international criminal law, a trend in the direction of criminalizing certain acts directed against the environment, not (only) as “regular” offences, but as a distinct category of international crime – the ecocide, has emerged. Under human rights law, a series of cases brought in front of international specialized tribunals require that the protection of the environment be validated as a fundamental human right. This research aims to analyze these evolutions under both international human rights and international criminal law, as they cannot be seen as parallel and unrelated. Not only that they may prove influential over each other, but if the outcome of this normative process shall be successful, it may result in one of the most important evolutions, in both international human rights law and international criminal law in the post-war period.

Author

• Daniela-Anca Deteseanu, University of Bucharest Faculty of Law