“ANDcocidio”, or the conscious destruction, partial or total, of a natural environment. If anyone now talks about crime, Pope Francis has long defined it as a serious sin: now, the Green Left Alliance is putting forward the bill to make it a crime.
Ecocide must become a crime
Some countries in the world – very few in reality – they have already made provisions to make it a crime and now, Italy is also starting to work towards the same result, or at least to talk about it more. For Alleanza Verdi Sinistra it would be a measure that “has the potential to radically change the way we tackle the climate crisis and environmental protection”.
What would it be about
According to the proponents, in fact, this bill «would make any serious damage to nature legally and morally unacceptable. It would therefore have the power to stop funding practices that destroy ecosystems.” Furthermore, according to the AVS the law «would have the power to transform the understanding of our responsibility towards our place in the natural world and it would stimulate innovation in a more ecologically sustainable direction».
Ecocide must become a crime: the Greens’ bill in Italy (Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto)
Penalties for ecocide
The sanctions for those who violate the provisions of the law, “unless there are the conditions for more serious crimes” would be punished with imprisonment for 3 to 6 years. The penalties would apply even if the crime was committed abroad by an Italian citizen.
The debate began 50 years ago
The term ecocide was first used 50 years ago at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington. And it is precisely from that moment that activists and legal scholars have continued the battle for the recognition of the crime of ecocide.
But the ones who brought something more concrete were the lawyer Polly Higgins and the English activist Jojo Metha. The two, in fact, have joined forces in the awareness campaign Stop Ecocide International. The objective was to have ecocide included among the international crimes prosecutable by the Hague court which can already rule on these cases based on the effects caused on people.
The draft law
In 2019, the lawyer Higgins died, but her commitment was continued by the foundation and, in fact, in 2020 the group made up of 12 experts on climate justice and international law, began working on the draft ecocide law. The result was to give the new definition: “Illegal or reckless acts committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial probability of serious and widespread or long-term damage to the environment from such acts.”
Only the recognition of the law can stop it
Recognition as a crime, moreover, is the only thing that can lead not only to knowing the meaning of ecocide, but to the prosecution of those who cause serious environmental damage directed to the land, the sea, the flora and fauna that we see one after the other. In this way, environmental devastation will become the fifth of the crimes tried by the International Criminal Court together with the genocide, to crimes against humanityto the war crimes and ai crimes of aggression.
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