Pacific Island leaders urge rich countries to do more to help control climate change
FOX NewsMAR 13 2023
On Monday, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa presented a court proposal to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting the classification of environmental destruction, or ecocide, as a crime alongside genocide and war crimes.
According to the proposal, ecocide is described as "unlawful or wanton acts, committed with knowledge that those acts have a substantial likelihood of causing severe and/or widespread or long-term damage to the environment."
Vanuatu first requested ICC ecocide jurisdiction in 2019. According to Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change, Ralp Regenvanu, the world community must take this debate seriously.
Ecocide—nature destruction—should be a global crime. Revising the Rome Statute of the ICC would criminalize environmental devastation, the fourth most lucrative unlawful activity in the world, which costs $258B annually. It would enable the Paris Agreement to force nations to reduce emissions. A global climate emergency requires us to modify the laws; existing regulations will not save the climate.
sfdhgfdhgkjhgköIt is admirable to devote so much time and effort to developing the notion of ecocide, but it is far from acceptable to everyone. The definition needs additional work. However, the exercise has always had a symbolic nature because it is unlikely that two-thirds of state parties will approve an ecocide amendment. Those states most prone to ecocide would likely reject the amendment. Additionally, the US, China, India, and Russia, which are not signatories to the ICC, further complicate the situation.