Ecocide: The 5th International Crime with Jojo Mehta
Ecocide: The 5th International Crime with Jojo Mehta
A Shift in Global Consciousness for Planetary Health and Safety.
Jojo Mehta, a visionary leader in the environmental movement, co-founded Stop Ecocide in 2017 alongside the late Polly Higgins, a pioneering barrister. Their audacious goal: to establish ecocide, the widespread destruction of the environment, as a crime at the International Criminal Court (ICC). This bold vision ignited a global movement, and Mehta's leadership has been instrumental in its remarkable growth.
As the movement to criminalize ecocide gathers momentum, Jojo stands at the forefront. Her unwavering leadership serves as a beacon of hope for a world where humanity and the environment can co-exist in harmony.
“Ecocide” means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.1
The term was first introduced in 1970 by American plant biologist and bioethicist Arthur W. Galston, who was involved in research on a defoliant (a herbicide) that would later become infamous as Agent Orange, the most widely used chemical weapon during the Vietnam War — sprayed over vast areas of Vietnamese forests to eliminate enemy cover and food sources.
After Galston witnessed the horrific effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese environment — widespread devastation of the natural environment — he became disillusioned with the use of his scientific work for destructive purposes and emerged as an anti-war activist.
The term ecocide serves as a stark reminder of the potential for human activity to cause immense damage to the natural world.
Stop Ecocide International (SEI) is the driving force at the heart of the growing global movement to make ecocide a fifth international crime. The inclusion of ecocide in the Rome Statute would add a new crime to international criminal law. This would be the first new international crime to be conceived of since 1945.
The current four International Crimes are:
Genocide: The deliberate destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
Crimes against Humanity: Widespread or systematic attacks directed against civilians, such as murder, torture, enslavement, deportation, or persecution.
War Crimes: Serious violations of the laws of war that occur during armed conflict, such as targeting civilians, using banned weapons, or mistreatment of prisoners of war.
Crimes of Aggression: The planning, preparation, initiation or execution of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
These crimes are considered the most serious violations of international law and are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the Rome Statute.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community.
The Court's founding treaty, called the Rome Statute, grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes.
INL: How would establishing ecocide as a crime complement or enhance existing environmental laws and regulations?
Jojo: Ecocide law will support environmental laws and regulations around the world by creating a kind of enforceable “container” law or foundational parameter that will encourage corporate decision makers and policymakers to take the rest of environmental law more seriously. They will understand that if they fail to fulfill their environmental obligations and risk committing ecocide they could be in criminal law territory, risking personal reputation and freedom along with corporate reputation and share value. This creates a fundamental change in approach and a double level of deterrence.
INL: Stop Ecocide's legal efforts aim to deter ecocide through accountability. Can you elaborate on this?
Audio transcription:
Jojo: Ecocide is increasingly understood to mean severe and reckless harm to the environment.
Our advocacy organization works worldwide to drive the conversation at the level of policy and diplomacy so that criminalisation of those kinds of harms can be enacted around the world at national, regional and international levels. And when we're talking about ecocide, what we're referring to are those really severe harms. One might think of massive oil spills or mass deforestation, or severe river system pollution. In other words, we're not talking about chopping down trees on the village green. We're talking about damage that would cover a wide geographical area or be very serious and long term. Not least because we aim ultimately for ecocide to be designated an international crime. And for that to be the case, it obviously needs to be the most egregious, the worst instances that fall under that law.
There are many environmental laws and regulations in place around the world, but they are often badly followed, poorly enforced, terribly monitored, all of those things. That is largely because we have a cultural aversion to taking seriously mass harm to nature. And that is ever more obviously becoming a real problem.
Criminal law has a particular part to play here. When you think about crime, people often run down a dark alley with a knife in their mind because that's what they associate with crime. But criminal law is actually protective law. Our basic human right — is the right to life. But that right is not worth a lot if murder is not a crime. In other words, taking away your life is a crime and that is what protects you. And so criminal law has this particular protective, preventive effect. It is also the kind of law that we use to draw moral lines. It's how we define what we consider acceptable, what we consider safe and what's dangerous. So criminal law is primarily about safety. At the moment, our economic activity over the last few decades has become incredibly dangerous to people, to climate, and to nature.
INL: How does the concept of ecocide law fit into a larger vision for a more sustainable and just future for all?
Jojo: We see ecocide law as a fundamental legal framework to protect people and the planet. It acknowledges that severe harm to the environment is inherently dangerous and should be prevented. It is a necessary (but not sufficient) parameter. It won’t fix everything, but this ‘outer boundary’ framework is absolutely key to steer all high-level decision making in a healthier direction.
We envisage a world where planetary boundaries are respected, future generations are protected, and causing severe and either widespread or long-term harm to nature is no longer morally or legally acceptable.
INL: What would you say is the role of the individual, or citizens of the world, when it comes to our global environmental problems?
Audio transcription:
Jojo: We believe it's time for accountability to be refocused where it really lies, which is at the highest levels of industry and government. We feel it's really quite unfair that over recent decades there's been an increase in this idea that somehow we are all individually responsible for climate and ecological breakdown, and that somehow as consumers, we are simply demanding the continuation of certain ways of doing things. This feels grossly unfair.
Most of the world simply can't afford to make ecological choices with their wallets. Obviously if one can afford to, it's a good thing to do. Effectively, what is offered to citizens — and we are citizens — not consumers (that's just one of the things that we might do). Most citizens are busy trying to earn a living, get bread on the table and may not be able to afford to make those choices. That's true in the developed world and it's even more true in the global south, the developing world.
It's very important to put rules in place that can apply to those at the highest level. Ecocide law is exactly that. It creates parameters that say, whatever you do, you should not create severe — either widespread or long term harm to the environment.
Basically, whatever you do, it should not create ecocide. And if it does, then you can be held individually criminally responsible. The aim of that is to create a steer at the highest level, a deterrent and a preventive that enables decision makers and prompts decision makers to make healthier decisions, so that ultimately the options that we are presented as ordinary people are healthier, are more ecologically sound, and effectively, we get to a point where collectively we stop sawing off the branch that we're sitting on.
INL: Criminalizing ecocide could be a catalyst for a broader shift in global consciousness. It would indicate a society that values environmental protection equal to civil safety.
How do you see this collective shift transforming the systems that are currently in place?
Audio transcription:
Jojo: We see these moments in history where something is happening out there in the world that requires a legal response that doesn't yet exist. That was true in the 1940’s of genocide and crimes against humanity. We believe a similar moment is happening at the moment with ecocide. And that to put in place a law to address ecocide and to say that it is bad, wrong and dangerous to severely harm the environment will, in our consciousness, bring those kinds of harms more into alignment with how we currently think of mass damage to people or to property.
That, in turn, will create a kind of shift in how decisions are made.
And it's not, of course, that we don't affect the environment with many things that we do as a human civilization. Of course we do. But what we've lost is that sense of balance, that sense of reciprocity, that sense of consequence for our actions. Even though intellectually we can grasp that we can't extract infinitely from a finite planet, we don't really behave as if we understand that, because of the deeply embedded cultural separation that we have between humans and nature.
Even though intellectually we can grasp that we can't extract infinitely from a finite planet, we don't really behave as if we understand that because of the deeply embedded sort of cultural separation that we have between humans and nature.
So to create something legally that will help to create that shift is really important.
It's something that indigenous cultures understand very well. They have a sort of DNA-level understanding of the reciprocity that exists between humans and the living world around us. When we damage Mother Earth, there are consequences. It is as simple as that. And for them, that's a spiritual as well as a physical fact. But it is nonetheless absolutely true.
It is therefore logical, reasonable, natural, all of those things, that we should reflect that reality in our legal systems. To do that, we often see that there's a kind of a pattern of a sort of crossover between law and culture. So our consciousness has to reach a certain point where we realize this is bad, dangerous and wrong and we need to put something in place to prevent it.
The entire culture doesn't have to be at that point, for that to happen — but once it does happen — once there is a crime in place, that actually starts to shift the kind of moral sense around it for the culture at large. I think we are reaching, as I say, this key moment with ecological damage, where this realization is coming to the fore. It's the right moment to put this law in place.
INL: What are some common misconceptions about ecocide that Stop Ecocide is working to address?
Jojo: Sometimes the word ‘ecocide’ is a new concept to people, but in fact, it is quite intuitive to understand. It comes from Greek and Latin, meaning ‘to kill one's home’, which is an apt description of what is happening to the Earth. It should be clear from this that it only applies to the most severe harms, not everyday activities. Sometimes people think of criminal law as threatening but its true role is protective. Homicide, for example, is a crime not to punish murderers (though that’s how it works), but to stop people killing each other. Ecocide law is certainly a tool to create accountability and justice, but its primary aim is to change behavior and the perception of what is acceptable. It’s important, in this context, that the law is visibly approaching, so that corporate executives and policy makers have time to adapt.
INL: Why have you dedicated yourself to this work?
Audio transcription:
Jojo: I think everyone who I know who works in this space, who is effectively working to improve the situation on the planet, was inspired by something that outraged them. For me, that was the discovery of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. When I first found out about it, I remember being appalled and thinking this just doesn't work from any possible angle — it doesn't work environmentally, it doesn't work for health, it doesn't work even economically.
I was talking about it to my family, and my little daughter, who was five, overheard and just began to cry. She was weeping and saying, “Mummy, if they're poisoning the ground, they're poisoning themselves. You have to call them and tell them to stop.” I just remember thinking, this is insane — my five-year-old understands this. Really, it should be blindingly obvious to everyone.
That was the moment that I got out of my activist armchair, where I was busy signing petitions and sending off the occasional letter to an elected representative and actually put my boots on the ground. You could say I started researching, writing leaflets, giving talks, organizing demonstrations. That was how I got involved with the anti-fracking community, which actually made a huge difference in the UK.
It's also how I met the remarkable pioneering barrister, lawyer, Polly Higgins, with whom I co-founded what is now Stop Ecocide International. She had this incredibly straightforward approach to the question “what do we do about mass damage to the environment?” She said, “Let's call it Ecocide and make it a crime.” That just seemed like such an intuitive, big-picture way of approaching this, that I was hugely inspired by. We got on incredibly well, and we co-founded this organization together from there.
“What do we do about mass damage to the environment?”
She [Polly] said, “Let's call it Ecocide and make it a crime.”
Polly is sadly no longer with us. She died of cancer in 2019. But since then, this movement has only grown.
INL: Are there actions can individuals take to support Stop Ecocide's mission and advocate for ecocide laws in their own communities?
Jojo: Yes, absolutely! This is all about a global conversation. If you or your organization interact with policy, think about recommending ecocide law. If you interact with the public (articles, events, reports, etc), consider including ecocide law. In your private networks, or in your sector, talk about ecocide law. For more inspiration and ways to get involved, visit the Stop Ecocide website.
Independent Expert Panel’s consensus definition of Ecocide.
“Severe” means damage which involves very serious adverse changes, disruption or harm to any element of the environment, including grave impacts on human life or natural, cultural or economic resources.
“Widespread” means damage which extends beyond a limited geographic area, crosses state boundaries, or is suffered by an entire ecosystem or species or a large number of human beings.
“Long-term” means damage which is irreversible or which cannot be redressed through natural recovery within a reasonable period of time.
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