Ecocide: Criminalising Serious Harm against the Environment explores the concept of ecocide and critically assesses how the criminalisation of serious harm against the environment fits within international criminal law broadly construed. It aims to assist in fleshing out crucial parameters in the lead-up to the potential inclusion of the fifth core international crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as in relation to efforts to criminalise ecocide at the national level, both of which have gained unprecedented momentum in recent times.
To this end, the volume’s chapters address four key questions: what constitutes ecocide, how can it be prosecuted, where should it be prosecuted, and who are its perpetrators and victims? In addition to more practice-focused chapters, including case studies on the Netherlands and Ukraine, the book analyses and challenges fundamental conceptual issues, including the binary opposition between ‘anthropocentrism’ and ‘ecocentrism’ in the ecocide discourse. The reader is confronted with and forced to reflect on intriguing questions such as: is it fair to only prosecute representatives of large business corporations and state officials, while letting consumers of polluting products off the hook? And does the legal framework of the ICC allow for the recognition of nonhumans, such as the environment, as victims of ecocide?
