Ecocide as a New International Crime

For the first time in the Asia-Pacific region an expert panel will consider the proposed definition for the crime of ecocide.

The Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide, chaired by barrister and author Philippe Sands QC (UK) together with UN jurist and former prosecutor Dior Fall Sow (Senegal), was convened in late 2020 at a powerfully symbolic moment, 75 years after the terms “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” were first used at Nuremberg.

Commissioned by the Stop Ecocide Foundation, an expert drafting panel of 12 highly renowned international criminal and environmental lawyers from around the world has just concluded six months of deliberations. The result: a legal definition of “ecocide” as a potential fifth international crime, to sit alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.

The proposed definition of Ecocide is available on the newly launched Ecocide Law website, an academic and legal resource hub co-managed by the Stop Ecocide Foundation and the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law.