An illegal toxic dump site in Croatia, the theft of water from a major aquifer in southern Spain, illegal trading of ozone-depleting refrigerants in France: This is just a sampling of the environmental crimes that European countries are struggling to stop. The lack of accountability for these acts stems in part from the European Union’s legal code, which experts say is riddled with vague definitions and gaps in enforcement. That’s about to change.
Last week, EU lawmakers voted in a new directive that criminalizes cases of environmental damage “comparable to ecocide,” a term broadly defined as the severe, widespread, and long-term destruction of the natural world. Advocates called the move “revolutionary,” both because it sets strict penalties for violators, including up to a decade in jail, and because it marks the first time that an international body has created a legal pathway for the prosecution of ecocide.
“This decision marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals and could usher in a new age of environmental litigation in Europe,” wrote Marie Toussaint, a French lawyer and EU parliamentarian for the Greens/European Free Alliance group, on X...
The new directive uses the term “ecocide” in its preamble, but does not criminalize the act by laying out a legal definition (the most widely accepted definition of ecocide was developed by an international panel of experts in 2021). Instead, it works by providing a list of “qualified offenses,” or crimes that fall within its purview. These include pollution from ships, the introduction of invasive species, and ozone depletion...
The new law holds people liable for environmental destruction if they acted with knowledge of the damage their actions would cause. This aspect of the law is important, experts said, because it means that a permit is no longer enough for a company to avoid culpability.
“If new information shows that behavior is causing irreversible damage to health and nature – you will have to stop,” a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, Antonius Manders, told Euronews.
Advocates like Mehta hope that the EU’s move will have influence beyond Europe’s borders. The principal goal of the Stop Ecocide campaign is for the International Criminal Court to designate ecocide as the fifth international crime that it prosecutes, after crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and genocide. At the moment, environmental destruction can only be prosecuted as a war crime at the ICC, and limitations in the law make this extremely difficult to do...
Kate Mackintosh, the executive director of the Netherlands-based UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, told Grist that the ICC is unlikely to adopt an ecocide law if other countries do not do so first.
“It’s not something you can just pull out of thin air,” she said, adding that any international legal doctrine has to have a precedent on the national level. “That’s the way states are going to accept it.”
The EU’s 27 member states will have two years to adapt the new legislation into their penal codes. Afterwards, their implementation must be reviewed and updated at least once every five years using a “risk-analysis based approach,” to account for advancements in experts’ understanding of what might constitute an environmental crime. Mehta said that despite its omission of some important offenses, the law sets an important example for other countries. Several days before the EU vote, Belgium adapted its criminal code to include the directive, making it the first country in Europe to recognize ecocide as a crime.
The ruling “shows leadership and compassion,” Mehta said. “It will establish a clear moral as well as legal ‘red line’, creating an essential steer for European industry leaders and policy-makers going forward.”
-via Grist, March 6, 2024
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Attention Australians!!
If you're an Australian resident, sign this! If you're not Australian, reblog this!
Let's make sure that our politicians cannot get away with supporting genocide.
@anarchistmemecollective @theauspolchronicles @kropotkindersurprise @antifainternational @lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers
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Dozens of Ukrainian children from a Russian-occupied city in Ukraine were taken to Belarus and sent to “emergency survival training” with the Belarusian military, according to local media.
The Belarus 4 Mogilev state television channel reported on Wednesday that 35 children from the city of Antratsyt in eastern Ukraine, which Russia has occupied since 2014, were sent to the eastern Belarusian city of Mogilev, where they were taught “how to behave in extreme situations” in exercises with the Belarusian military.
In the report, the children — some of whom are wearing tracksuits with Russian flags printed on their sleeves — are shown holding on to each other and covering their faces during a fire drill.
Thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and Belarus from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. In July 2023, Russian Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova put the figure of Ukrainian children “received” by Russia at 700,000, claiming most were accompanied by their parents or other relatives.
A study by Yale University found that between September 2022 and May 2023, over 2,400 Ukrainian children aged 6 to 17 were deported to Belarus from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which are occupied by Russian forces.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with a group of deported Ukrainian kids last month, promising to “embrace these children, bring them to our home, keep them warm and make their childhood happier.”
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of overseeing the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
(continue reading)
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folks in light of the recent news I think it's good to keep in mind that the ICC does NOT have the power to, on its own, actually prosecute vladimir putin for war crimes.
yes, there was an arrest warrant, but because russia is NOT currently a state party to the rome statute (the founding treaty of the ICC) and the court does not have a police force of its own, it can't actually enforce the warrant they put out without cooperation of a state party.
that's something you can read more about in the ICC website, but i.e. unless putin actually visits one of the state parties of the ICC, himself, the warrant by itself is only a symbolic gesture. as much as we all wish to see him pay for what he's done, let's not get misled by reading only the headlines.
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Australian PM referred to ICC for complicity in genocide
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been referred to the International Criminal Court as an accessory of genocide to Gaza, announced this morning.
He's the first leader of a Western nation to be referred to the ICC over complicity in genocide. This could set a precedent for other leaders, such as Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak, to also be referred and potentially face trial.
Sources:
Birchgrove Legal Files Case for Complicity to Genocide to the Hague- International Criminal Court [Media Release] | Birchgrove Legal
Australian PM First Western Leader Referred to ICC as 'Accessory to Genocide in Gaza' (commondreams.org)
Antoinette Lattouf on X: "BREAKING: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been referred to the International Criminal Court as an accessory to genocide in Gaza making him the 1st leader of a Western nation referred to the ICC under Article 15 of the Rome Statute. 100+ Australian lawyers back this move https://t.co/5lQDdbU589" / X (twitter.com)
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https://www.justiceforall.org/icc-submissions/
This is via Justice For All, a Chicago based NGO.
A direct link to the ICC-TP submission platform is here:
https://otplink.icc-cpi.int/
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