Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil –
On June 5, the Rio Earth Summit has been happening on the other side of the world, and a barrister is presenting her grass roots program Eradicating Ecocide.
Polly Higgins began her journey in England as a barrister which is what we call a lawyer. Like many of us who face choice points in life, she had an epiphany that Mother Earth needs a lawyer.
Facing the overwhelming deluge of environmental issues of our times, she began a journey to create a voice for the place we all call home. Polly realized that the earth needed an advocate and that the laws that address the planet is one of slavery if the earth were considered a being. But the earth is considered a commodity, a possession which we as humans have a right to exploit until there is nothing left.
This in Polly’s opinion, is farthest from the truth. Her opinion, and those of a growing movement called Eradicating Ecocide, that the earth has rights as people and animals have rights. As a living system which we all are codependent upon, the earth needs to be treated as a person and fall under the laws which govern life forms versus things. This is a change, not just in perception but in the governance of all interactions.
Polly was invited by the UN in 2008 to speak on her proposal for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. In 2011 Bolivia proposed the Declaration into the UN, now named the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.
In April 2010, Higgins proposed to the UN the law of Ecocide as the 5th Crime against Peace and her proposal includes the use of the existing UN Trusteeship Council to ensure assistance be given to territories damaged by or at risk of ecocide. A campaign was launched.
The Problem
Each day 100 living species become extinct, 1,000 acres of peat bogs are excavated and 150,000 acres of tropical rainforest are destroyed. Each day, 2 million tons of toxic waste is dumped in to our rivers and seas, 22 million tons of oil are extracted and 100 million tons of greenhouse gases are released.
Today large scale habitat destruction, massive soil depletion, extensive deforestation lead to worldwide disruption of natural cycles and the irreversibility of extinction. Today instances of mass extinction occur with greater frequency, greater rapidity and greater impact than at any other time.
This destruction, damage and loss comes at an enormous cost.
A recent report for the United Nations has found that 3,000 of the world’s biggest corporations caused $2.2 trillion of ecocide in 2008.
Proposal for Ecocide to be the 5th International Crime Against Peace
Ecocide the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) 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.
Polly Higgins submitted to the United Nations in April 2010 the written proposal for Ecocide to be made the 5th Crime Against Peace, alongside Genocide. She set out a legal definition of the word ecocide and has created a provision that will impose a legal duty of care on all companies to place environmental considerations first.
Implementation of the crime of Ecocide will stop the flow of destruction at source and create a pre-emptive duty on corporate activity to prohibit the mass damage and destruction to ecosystems from the outset. This will create a powerful preventative measure to govern those in a superior position of responsibility – CEO’s, heads of state and heads of financial institutions – and make them responsible for the decisions that lead to, support or finance mass damage and destruction.
By levying responsibility on persons, not legal fictional entities (ie, a corporation), the cycle of destruction and accrual of silent rights (the right to pollute, the right to destroy) will end. In so doing, the protection of interests shifts from those few who have ownership to protection of all those who are at risk of Ecocide. Moreover, by legally defining Ecocide, we can re-open the currently defunct mechanism within the UN – the UN Trusteeship Council – to put in place an international mechanism based on trusteeship principles and obligations for communities most adversely affected by ecocide which in turn has rendered them non-self-governing.
The International Criminal Court was formed in 2002 to prosecute individuals for breaches of 4 Crimes Against Peace. They are: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression. Ecocide has been proposed by Polly Higgins as the missing 5th Crime Against Peace.
Ecocide, the missing 5th Crime Against Peace, is a crime against nature and humanity
Where territory is destroyed (over a certain size, duration and impact), it is not only the land and all that grows there that is lost, it is also the homeland of others. Inhabitants, both human and non-human, have the right to peace: destroy our land and we destroy ourselves. Destroy the land of others and we leave less for the rest.
Why?
By stopping ecocide we stop destroying the home of all humanity and the source of our survival. If it is international law it will apply to all humanity benefiting all species.
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