Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ecologists have been emphasising how deforestation increases our risk of pandemics. With more than half of the Earth’s tropical forests already destroyed to clear land for grazing animals and their feed – and forest land equivalent to 300 football fields being cleared every hour – we are only now awakening to another global crisis that scientists have been warning us about for decades, a global crisis in land use. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, around a quarter of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions derive from agriculture, forestry, and other land use. We currently use land irresponsibly and inefficiently to fuel animal agriculture. To celebrate Veganuary 2024, we take a look at the land use crisis and discuss whether veganism can be the solution we are looking for.

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Destroying Our Forests for Beef 

We often hear that belching cows cause climate change by emitting methane, but how often do we think about the land-use of cows? A major driver of global deforestation is our demand for beef. A mere four commodities – beef, soy, palm oil and wood products – are responsible for the majority of tropical deforestation, but beef causes more than twice as much deforestation as the other three commodities combined. 

The Amazon Rainforest, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is on the brink of switching to a savannah ecosystem because of the global appetite for meat: 80% of its cleared land is used for cattle ranching and 10% is used for planting soy (of which almost 80% is then used for animal feed). In Australia, the WWF estimates that koalas will be extinct as early as 2050, because their habitats have been destroyed by land clearing for livestock pasture.

80% of the Amazon Rainforest’s cleared land is used for cattle ranching and 10% is used for planting soy – of which almost 80% is then used for animal feed.

Beef is notoriously resource-inefficient, even within the animal protein categories: As inefficient converters of energy, beef cattle need 28 times more land and 11 times more water than poultry or pork. Beef farming also emits 20 times more greenhouse gases than common plant proteins like beans. As per capita meat consumption rises, the incentive to produce beef – and cut down rainforests in order to do so – will only increase. In fact, the World Resources Institute estimates that, to cater for our increased demand for beef, we would need to clear a further 400 million hectares of pastureland by 2050, which would cause so much deforestation that the global goal of limiting temperature rise of 1.5-2 degrees C would be put out of reach. 

By destroying our forests, we lose our carbon sinks, water stores and havens of plant and animal biodiversity, which in turn worsens climate change. As environmental activist George Monboit puts it, “It is the amount of land an animal-based diet needs that makes it so destructive.”

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Soy Monocultures and Deserts

Not only does a meat-based diet require excessive amounts of land, the crops grown for animal feed puts a further strain for land-use. One-third of global arable land is used to grow animal feed, like soy and maize. As the demand for soy has more than doubled in the past 20 years, more forests have been cleared to make way. 

Besides clearing 480 000 hectares per year for soy cultivation, industrial farming practices like mono-cropping, tilling and the use of synthetic fertilisers and herbicides threatens soil health, depleting nutrients from the soil and leaving it unable to support healthy plant growth without using harsher and more toxic synthetic fertilisers. While these chemicals will expand the farming life of the land for a certain period, the land will eventually become unproductive and desertified, and more land will have to be cleared to meet the ever-increasing demand for soy.

More damaging is that most of the nutritional value of this soy is lost in the conversion from plant protein to animal protein, which is less than 3% efficient. Thus, while soybeans themselves are highly nutritious and efficient – producing five to fifteen times more protein than meat and milk – feeding them to animals, rather than directly to humans, is an extremely inefficient use of land.   

How Veganism Can Help Solve the World’s Land Use Crisis

The good news is that veganism could quite literally save the Earth, by freeing up space for nature and combating the planet’s land use crisis. Researchers at the University of Oxford have found that if everyone went vegan, global farmland use could be reduced by 75%, the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined. If our protein needs were met with soy instead of animals, deforestation would fall by 94%. By stopping deforestation and increasing reforestation instead, we could achieve 23% of the climate mitigation needed for a two degrees Celsius scenario. 

Not only would this solve our land-use crisis and make our food systems more efficient, we would also be eating more humanely. Even if we put aside the destruction of biodiversity and animal habitats, illegal deforestation for animal agriculture is displacing millions of Indigenous peoples, fuelling conflict and violence. Illegal deforestation also distorts legal timber markets by increasing the supply of timber and pushing down the price, incentivising other loggers to adopt lucrative but illegal practices and hindering efforts to implement sustainable forest management. A sustainable food future requires us to reduce our meat consumption, so that we can use our land more efficiently. With Hong Kong consistently topping the charts of world meat consumption by country, it is time to mobilise for a diet change. We must fight this land use crisis with what’s on our plates by swapping out our steaks for tofu and embracing veganism.

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The post Veganuary 2024: How Veganism Can Help Ease the World’s Land Use Crisis appeared first on Earth.Org.

The Hong Kong Legislative Council recently passed the city’s first and long-awaited waste disposal bill, 16 years after it was first proposed. The proposed Hong Kong Waste Charging Scheme would mean that its residents will soon have to pay a tax on the garbage they generate. Will this move be enough to tackle its waste problem or is it too little, too late?

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Hong Kong is known to be a city of glitz and glamour but its uglier and less talked about facet is its monumental waste problem. Its seven million residents have been steadily generating more trash since 1991, according to figures released by the Environmental Protection Department. In 2019, 5.67 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) were disposed of at landfills. At the same time, less is being recycled each year: in the same year, only 29% of MSW was recycled, down from 30% in 2018. Hong Kong has already filled up and closed down 13 landfills, and its remaining three landfills, which cover the same size as 379 football fields, are overflowing. 

Introducing the Waste Charging Scheme

The government’s latest move as part of its Waste Blueprint for Hong Kong 2035 is to push for a waste charging scheme, which it hopes will reduce per capita waste disposal by up to 45% and increase the recycling rate by 55%. The Waste Disposal (Charging for Municipal Solid Waste) (Amendment) Bill, which was tabled in November 2018 and passed on 26 August 2021 after delay, will see the average household paying anywhere between HKD$33 and $55 a month to throw out their trash in 11 types of designated trash bags that vary in size. Each litre of trash will cost roughly $0.11, with a 100 litre bag costing $11; and large items that do not fit in the trash bags costing $11 per item for disposal. Trash bags and labels will initially be distributed for free, before becoming widely available across 4,000 sites including supermarkets, gas stations, and convenience stores. Those who violate the law will be charged a $1,500 fine.

While the scheme will not launch until 2023, giving the government another 18 months for preparatory work like launching publicity and educational campaigns, preparing various sectors of the community, and strengthening recycling infrastructure, we might foresee that Hong Kong will follow in the footsteps of Seoul and Taipei, which had both implemented their waste charging schemes more than 20 years ago. Both schemes have been hugely successful. 

In Taipei, since launching their “pay as you throw” scheme in 2000, waste generation has fallen 31%; from 1.26 kg per person per day in 1997 to 0.87 kg in 2015. Landfill use decreased by 98% while recycling has increased from 2 to 57%. Similarly, Seoul’s waste charging scheme led to a 17.8% reduction in waste generation within a year in 1995. These schemes are all premised on the “polluter pays” principle, an environmental law tenet which requires those who create pollution to bear the costs of managing it to prevent environmental damage. Those who pollute more are charged more, thereby creating economic incentives to reduce waste.

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Remaining Questions

A waste charging scheme is undoubtedly an environmental victory for Hong Kong. The last major levy on plastic shopping bags has reduced the use of plastic bags by 90%, showing the potential of a tax on garbage. However, a study by Alzamora and Barros published in Waste Management in 2020 found that the effectiveness of a waste management system depends, at least in part, on advances in environmental education and users’ participation.

Cleaners have already raised their concern that individuals might opt to dispose of their garbage on the street, which would increase their workload. There are other loopholes as well: Cleaning Workers Union organiser Leung Tze-yan expressed that irresponsible disposal will likely be severe in tong laus (pre-war tenement block) that are without refuse collection services, as well as in public housing with multiple flats on the same floor where it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine who did or did not use the designated trash bags. It will therefore be imperative for the government to educate the public on Hong Kong’s waste problem and why waste reduction is important for everyone to partake in, in order to create a strong buy-in to this new scheme.

Leung’s comment raises a further issue of tax regressiveness: while a $10 monthly subsidy will be offered to those receiving social security, this would still amount to a $23 to $45 charge, which is substantial for the one in five Hongkongers living below the poverty line. These individuals may not have the option to shop plastic-free or to live a low-waste lifestyle, especially given that over 80% of stocked goods in supermarkets are wrapped in plastic and nearly half of which are wrapped by the supermarkets themselves. 

Alongside stronger protections and generous subsidies for vulnerable groups in its new scheme, the government should encourage supermarkets to reduce their use of plastic, and restaurants to look at environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic takeaway containers, making it easier and more accessible for the everyday person to minimise their waste. 

Recycling also ought to play a bigger role in Hong Kong’s waste management scheme. In Taiwan for example, recyclables are collected for free, encouraging residents to buy recyclable packaging and separate recyclables from general waste. Food waste is also separated. An investigation conducted by HK01 in 2020 found that the majority of plastic bottles placed in recycling bins at 14 public and private housing estates were sent to landfill. It’s clear that Hong Kong requires a better recycling infrastructure to be put in place. 

Most importantly, the materials of which the designated trash bags are made should be eco-friendly and sustainable. Compostable or biodegradable trash bags are no better than plastic when sent to landfills, as according to the Environmental Protection Agency, landfills do not “present the conditions in which complete decomposition will occur within one year”. 

All in all, though much more needs to be fleshed out to ensure the success of the new waste charging scheme –  implementing a tax on garbage can be a good first step towards making Hong Kong greener.

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When we think of our carbon footprint, we tend to pinpoint our electricity use or daily commute, when in fact, our social media habits are also a big polluter. Here’s why internet pollution can be harmful for the environment – and how we can be more eco-friendly netizens.

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By the time you’re reading this, you’ve probably sent an email, posted a photo on Instagram, or attended a Zoom meeting. Or you’ve done all of the above, if not today, then yesterday or the day before. Many internet and social media users do not think their online habits have much of an impact on the environment, but according to The Shift Project, a Paris-based climate think tank, the carbon footprint of our gadgets accounts for 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, which is more than the amount produced by the aviation industry, and is set to double by 2025. What’s more: this already colossal amount is increasing as more of us are working from home and staying in more due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent Yale-led study. Here’s how using the internet is bad for the environment and what you can do to stop polluting while posting.

Counting Emissions: From a Post, to a Search, to an Email

Shifting from paper to the screen seems like a greener way to consume and create information, and indeed, this is true to a certain extent. Using the internet to read the news or find information is more sustainable than reading a paperback or printed newspaper. According to Google in 2009, one Google search emits 0.2g of carbon dioxide and it takes another 1.76g of CO2 on average to load a website – although this can go up to 10 grams depending on the website’s complexity (for instance, if it has videos). The combined 2 grams from one single search is smaller than one paperback’s 1kg of CO2, and probably will wield more current and accurate information. 

Having said that, our online presence is far from green, keeping in mind that 65.5% of the world’s population – or 4.66 billion people – have access to the internet. The carbon footprint of an email ranges from 0.3g of CO2 for spam, to 4g for a regular email, to 50g for an attachment or photo. The environmental damage caused by using Instagram isn’t much better: while posting a photo emits 0.15g of CO2, scrolling on your newsfeed for 1 minute emits 1.5g of CO2. This might not seem like much, but the average user spends 28 minutes scrolling daily – that amounts to 42g of CO2 on one social media platform every day. Most of us will also spread our time across multiple social media accounts and streaming platforms. If you’re one of the 2.85 million (and counting) users on Facebook, you produce 12g of CO2 per year; and if you’re streaming one hour’s worth of video on Netflix or YouTube, that’s another 36g of CO2 in the emissions bank. The BBC estimates that individuals are responsible for around 414kg of carbon dioxide a year, and that’s just from running our devices. For those curious about how much CO2 you might be emitting online, you can use Ecotree’s tool to get an estimate.

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Social Media and Internet Pollution

While it might seem far-fetched that every ‘like’, ‘comment’, and ‘post’ contributes to internet pollution, it comes down to a very simple reason: internet usage requires electricity, and electricity is still largely powered by the burning of fossil fuels, hence the considerable amounts of CO2 emissions. Think about the energy needed to charge a smart device and wireless networks, and more significantly, the intensive energy data centres and servers needed to support high-speed internet connection. Globally, data centres account for 200 terawatt hours of electricity use, which is around 0.8% of global electricity demand, although there have been ongoing efficiency improvements and major investments in renewable energy by major tech companies including Google and Facebook. Upgrading smartphone devices is also a source of major intern pollution. An estimated 50 million tons of electronic waste is discarded in landfills each year, where lead and toxic chemicals from discarded devices pollute the soil and contaminate water.

Minimising Internet Pollution and Online Carbon Footprint

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to minimise individual online carbon footprint. Here are five simple things you can do to be a greener digital citizen:

1. Be a mindful email sender and receiver: Reduce the amount of pointless “thank you” emails and unsubscribe from any mailing lists that are immediately deleted. A study done by OVO energy in 2019 found that if every adult in the UK sent one less “thank you” email a day, it would save nearly 16,500 tonnes of CO2 a year, equivalent to 81,000 flights to Madrid. Cleanfox also found that an average email user receives 2,850 unwanted subscription emails a year, amounting to 28.5kg of CO2.
2. Turn off video in a Zoom meeting: Online meetings are the new norm thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Though emissions from travelling have been greatly reduced due to travel restrictions, a 2012 University of New South Wales study found that a five-hour video call between people in different countries could produce up to 215kg of CO2. 
3. Send fewer selfies: Sending an SMS text is apparently the most environmentally-friendly way of conversing as each text only emits about 0.014g of CO2. Those who opt for more carbon intensive options like WhatsApp, think twice before sending a selfie. A single selfie emits 5g of CO2 (which is more than a regular email).
4. Steam videos over Wifi: Using a smartphone to stream videos is not only more expensive, but also at least twice as energy intensive. 
5. Repair your electronics: France introduced a “right to repair” on electronic goods in March 2021, requiring washing machines, fridges, and TVs – and soon phones and laptops – to be repairable for up to 10 years. This great initiative will encourage companies to make their products more sustainable and consumers to use their products for longer, reducing electronic waste. 

The post How Social Media Habits are Contributing to Internet Pollution appeared first on Earth.Org.

Tree planting programmes can be a beneficial tool to combat climate change and rising temperatures as they could help store up CO2 and support surrounding wildlife. But more consideration is gravely needed as to what and where trees should be planted. Otherwise, all tree planting efforts would be moot and pile only more stress onto the environment and its biodiversity.

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Tree planting has been all the rage lately, so much so that almost everyone – from large multinational corporations like Nestlé and Salesforce, to NGOS like the World Economic Forum, to countries like Australia, China, and the US (including the late Trump Administration, which was known for its climate denialism) – seems to be making commitments to planting millions, billions, or even trillions of trees. We know that trees provide oxygen, store carbon dioxide, and support wildlife. So surely planting more trees must be the way to mitigate climate change, reverse deforestation, and sequester carbon dioxide, right? The simplicity of tree planting to save the environment seems almost too good to be true, and indeed, it might just be. 

How Did The Concept of Tree Planting Originate and What We Know About It Now

While some large tree planting programmes like China’s and Australia’s began several decades ago, tree planting gained its massive following thanks to a paper published in 2019 by the Crowther Lab, a research group at Swiss university ETH Zürich. “The global tree restoration potential” found that carbon capture by trees was likely the most effective strategy to limit the rise of carbon dioxide. The Lab generated a model of forest restoration across 900 million hectares globally, representing a 25% increase in forest area, which could store 25% of the current atmospheric carbon pool. This stunning revelation inspired tree planting projects like the World Economic Forum’s, following Thomas Crowther’s suggestion that we need to plant another 1 trillion trees to absorb carbon and that we should ‘stop talking and start planting’.   

To a certain extent, Crowther was right. Trees are critically important to combating climate change: nature-based solutions like tree planting can provide over one-third of emission reductions needed to stabilise warming to below 2C. Deforestation should be avoided at all costs, because we know that it increases global warming. But simply saying that planting any type of tree, anywhere in the world will mitigate climate change completely misses the mark. 

Instead, we need to be asking two questions.

What Types of Trees are Being Planted?

Not all trees were created equal; the type of tree planted makes a huge difference to whether tree planting is philanthropic or pointless.  The most ecologically productive forests are the oldest and most diverse: native forests are 40 times better than tree plantations at storing carbon. So natural forest restoration is the most effective and cheapest option for storing carbon, rather than planting new trees. In fact, planting vast monocultures of trees – pertaining to 45% of Bonn Challenge commitments by countries like China, Brazil, Indonesia, as well as nearly half of the land pledged for forest restoration – hold little more carbon than the land cleared to plant them. These monocultures – typically non-native, fast-growing Eucalyptus and Acacia – are harvested and cleared for replanting once a decade, which releases carbon back into the atmosphere. 

Non-native trees also consume significantly more water than native trees and crowd out native species, threatening biodiversity. For instance, a study conducted in 2018 found that the afforestation program in arid and semiarid northern China led to groundwater decline, creating large ecological and water opportunity costs. Another study in northern China found that where soils were already rich in carbon, adding new trees decreased the density of organic carbon, fixing less carbon into the soil.

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Where Are The Trees Being Planted?

Besides the species of tree, the location where the tree is being planted is important. Crowther’s map showed high-profile conservation areas like the Serengeti and traditional rangelands used by herders for millennia as suitable for tree planting. This ignores the fact that savanna and grasslands are productive, bio-diverse, and store up to a third of the world’s carbon in its soil; not to mention the neocolonial angle: the Global South’s natural heritage should not be converted into a tree plantation to offset the North’s carbon emissions. 

Planting dark-coloured trees to replace light-coloured surfaces like grasslands or deserts – which reflect more solar radiation back into space – can also cause heating on a local level and affect regional rainfall patterns.

What Does This Mean for Reforestation?

The bottom line is that for tree planting to be philanthropic rather than pointless, we must develop guidelines on what types of trees are planted, where they should be planted, and what the opportunity cost of planting these trees are. There is currently a ‘misplaced emphasis’ on the concept of the more the better, when in fact, we need to pay more attention to how they are planted. Most importantly, protecting existing forests and encouraging natural regeneration cannot be substituted by reforestation. As the Kew Gardens recommends, we must first and foremost conserve existing native forests, and one way that has proven successful is through leaving land under indigenous control.  

Featured image by: Flickr

The post Tree Planting to Reduce CO2 Emissions: Philanthropic or Pointless? appeared first on Earth.Org.

On May 4 2021, the New York Court of Appeals made history by agreeing to hear the habeas corpus case of Happy the Elephant, an intelligent and cognitively complex elephant that has been imprisoned in the Bronx Zoo for over 40 years. Happy, the “Bronx Zoo’s Loneliest Elephant,” has lived in solitary confinement in a 1.15-acre exhibit since 2006, after her companion of 25-years Grumpy died in 2002. This marks the first time the highest Court in any English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of a nonhuman animal.  

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Habeas Corpus For Humans 

Habeas corpus, meaning “show me the body” in Latin, is a common law right that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment. Originating in the Middle Ages in England, a court could grant a writ of habeas corpus, requiring a public official holding a prisoner in custody to produce the prisoner before the court for a judicial inquiry into the legality of their detention. If the court found that the prisoner was being held without a proper legal cause – for instance, being detained without being convicted of a crime by an impartial, competent and independent court of law – the judge could order for their immediate release. Habeas corpus has been used to contest slavery, the detention of refugees in Australia’s offshore processing centers and prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Extending Habeas Corpus for Nonhuman Animals: Tommy’s Case

While habeas corpus has traditionally applied to humans, animal rights organisations have recently attempted to extend this right to cognitively advanced animals that face indefinite imprisonment. In 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a small, dark, cement cage in a trailer park in New York. In its petition, NhRP argued that Tommy had complex cognitive abilities, including self-autonomy, episodic memory, self-consciousness, intentional communication and the ability to experience pain, which were sufficient to establish personhood. Hence, Tommy was an autonomous being entitled to protections afforded by New York law for legal persons, including the fundamental right to bodily liberty and freedom from unlawful detention. Unfortunately, Tommy’s habeas petition was denied in the Fulton County Supreme Court. Although Judge Sise found NhRP’s arguments impressive and strong, he refused to recognise a chimpanzee as a human or as a person who can seek a writ of habeas corpus. 

The NhRP’s appeal to the New York Court of Appeals was refused in 2018. Although Judge Fahey ultimately agreed with the majority in denying Tommy leave to appeal, he made interesting observations on habeas corpus. He held that the capacity or ability to bear legal duties cannot be a requirement for habeas corpus – contrary to the argument that nonhuman animals are not persons because they cannot bear duties – as human infants and comatose adults who cannot bear duties undoubtedly can seek habeas corpus. He suggested that instead of asking whether a chimpanzee fits the definition of a human or has the same rights and duties as a human, we should instead ask whether a chimpanzee is an individual with inherent value who should be treated with respect, rather than treating chimpanzees as a mere resource for human use or a thing. 

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From Tommy’s Case to Happy the Elephant

Happy’s case follows the trend of nonhuman habeas corpus cases. The NhRP brought Happy’s case in 2018, arguing that Happy should be recognised as a legal person with the right to bodily liberty. They relied on Judge Fahey’s findings in Tommy to argue that Happy, who in a 2005 experiment was the first elephant to pass a mirror self-recognition-test, indicating her self-awareness, and who according to expert scientific evidence possessed complex cognitive and social abilities, possesses the right to bodily liberty, in the same way that infants or humans bereft of consciousness – or even human slaves who were not at the time deemed legal persons – could seek habeas corpus. 

Happy’s habeas corpus case was denied in the Bronx County Supreme Court. Justice Tuitt, who heard the case over three days and was “extremely sympathetic to Happy’s plight,” “regretfully” denied habeas corpus relief, as she felt bound by the finding in Tommy’s case that animals are not “persons” entitled to rights and protections afforded by the writ of habeas corpus. Although Justice Tuitt agreed that Happy was more than just a legal thing or property and is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity and may be entitled to liberty, Happy was found not to be a “person” and hence not to be illegally imprisoned. 

The NhRP appealed Happy’s case to the New York Court of Appeals, which was granted earlier this month. 

Legal Implications Moving Forward

Happy’s habeas corpus case is a new legal frontier, as it is the first time that the New York Court of Appeals – a hugely influential court – will hear a nonhuman animal habeas corpus case. Regardless of the outcome, this case is monumental in terms of access to justice for animals. It recognises the public importance of Happy’s case, and more generally, the compelling plight of imprisoned and captured animals. 

Although giving animals rights may sound bizarre, we should remember that nature is already being conferred legal rights in 28 countries around the world – if rivers and forests are recognised and protected as legal persons, and indeed as Judge Fahey argues unconscious humans, why should intelligent, autonomous animals with cognitive abilities akin to humans not be given legal rights? As we learn more about animal cognition and the distinction between human and nonhuman continues to narrow, the argument for conferring legal protections to animals will only be strengthened. For now, we wait for the New York Court of Appeals to hand down their judgment and hope that eventually an end will be put to the injustice of Happy’s unlawful imprisonment at the Bronx Zoo.

Featured image by: NBCNews

The post The Case for ‘Freeing’ Happy the Elephant to be Heard by the New York Court of Appeals appeared first on Earth.Org.

Environmental justice has gained momentum in recent months across the globe. In January 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that its climate plan would focus on environmental justice, committing to develop policies to address the disproportionate health, economic, and environmental impacts of climate change on disadvantaged communities. More recently at the end of March, the UN Environmental Programme released a report on the ‘Environmental Justice Impacts of Plastic Pollution’, demonstrating how vulnerable communities are disproportionately affected by plastic pollution, from the displacement of indigenous peoples to conducting oil drilling to make plastics, to the occupation risks faced by plastic waste pickers in India. COVID-19 has highlighted that low-income and minority communities are more vulnerable to environmental hazards; an analysis by the New Policy Institute in the UK found that the five most crowded areas, primarily occupied by poor homeowners living in small houses, had a 70% higher rate of coronavirus cases than the five least crowded areas. All this buzz around environmental justice prompts us to ask: What exactly is environmental justice and where did the movement originate? And perhaps most pertinently, what does environmental justice mean for Hong Kong? 

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Defining Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is a response to environmental racism, which refers to the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on low-income and minority communities. The environmental justice movement demands the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws and policies, regardless of race, colour, national origin or income. It aspires for everyone to enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards.

The reality is that lower-wealth, minority, communities of colour often face environmental racism and injustice, which is linked to a long and oppressive history of racial discrimination, colonialism, and slavery. In the US, Jim Crow laws and redlining – the systematic denial of mortgages and loans to people of colour – have prevented Black communities from purchasing property in specific neighbourhoods, leading to housing segregation and economic disinvestment in certain areas. These communities continue to lack the political and economic power to prevent environmental degradation – for instance, the placement of a new hazardous waste facility or dumpsite – in their backyards, becoming what Sacoby Wilson, an environmental health scientist at the University of Maryland calls ‘sacrifice zones’ and ‘dumping grounds’ for polluting facilities.   

Origins of the Environmental Justice Movement

The racist distribution of environmental hazards led to the birth of the environmental justice movement in 1982, when protests erupted in Warren County – a predominantly Black community in North Carolina – over a plan to place a hazardous waste landfill for contaminated soil in their community. Despite a massive protest staged by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where more than 500 protesters were arrested, toxic waste was eventually deposited in the Warren County landfill. The Warren County protests ignited a spark in poor, minority communities across the US to create community groups to fight for environmental justice. It also served as an impetus for a number of studies on environmental racism, including the Toxic Waste and Race study, conducted in 1987 by the United Church of Christ, which found that race was the most significant factor in siting hazardous waste facilities. 

The Federal Government eventually responded in 1992, when President Bush Sr. established the Environmental Equity Working Group and initiated meetings on environmental justice with community leaders. In 1994, President Clinton issued an executive order calling all government agencies to include environmental justice in their decision-making. More recently in the Biden-Harris administration, environmental justice has been revived, with a recent proposal of a $1.4 billion environmental justice investment in President Biden’s 2022 budget plan, which includes the creation of an Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice initiative within the Environmental Protection Agency and a community air quality monitoring program. This is in addition to Biden’s $2 Trillion ‘American Jobs’ Infrastructure Plan, which also contains significant environmental justice provisions, including upgrading indoor air quality and ventilation in public schools and creating jobs to conserve public lands and waters in historically underserved communities.

Despite environmental justice’s compelling history and rhetoric, Paul Mohai, environmental justice expert at the University of Michigan, questions whether environmental justice policies can be anything more than ‘window dressing’, seeing as – at least in the US – no policies have produced measurable changes on the ground. However, environmental justice continues to be important, not least because it acknowledges the racist origins and impacts of climate change that are so often forgotten, but also because it recognises that the right to a safe environment is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed for all people. 

What Does Environmental Justice Mean for Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is no different from the US or UK when it comes to environmental injustice; low-income communities – including ethnic minority communities – are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards. A study conducted in 2018 by a team of University of Hong Kong (HKU) researchers found that social deprivation is positively correlated with poor air quality and higher-than-average air pollution levels, leading to higher death rates from pollution. Since 2015, excessive lead has been found in water in 11 public housing estates around Hong Kong, in Sham Shui Po, Ngau Tau Kok, and Shep Kip Mei among others. Certain poorer districts like Tuen Mun are also more susceptible to offensive facilities like landfills, with the Environmental Bureau proposing to extend the landfill in Tuen Mun in 2013, because residents were perceived to be less enraged than their Tseung Kwan O counterparts. 

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Coal mine railway in Sandoaling, China (Image by: Flickr)

The Government has taken action to address these problems. To ensure water safety, the Government implemented the Action Plan for Enhancing Drinking Water Safety in Hong Kong, which randomly samples drinking taps to monitor for metals. However, Hong Kong’s waste problem remains largely unsolved: The Government has added 13 new hectares of land to one of three landfills in Tseung Kwan O and is actively pushing forward proposals to expand the Tuen Mun landfill as well.  

As such, environmental justice is ever as important for Hong Kong – a city already well-known for its vast and gaping inequality. One potential solution proposed in the 2018 HKU study is to engage socially deprived communities in environmental efforts, like air pollution monitoring or tree-planting. This grassroots mobilisation could empower communities to equip themselves with knowledge about environmental degradation and build their capacity to solve environmental problems. A good example of a successful community-based project is the Clean Air Neighborhood Project, initiated by the Clean Air Network (CAN) in partnership with the Institute for the Environment of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. CAN worked with students from the Church of Christ in China Tam Lee Lai Fun Memorial Secondary School in Tuen Mun to identify air pollution problems within a 1.5km radius of the school, building the students’ environmental and scientific skills, while identifying air pollution hot-spots. At the same time, the Hong Kong government could place a greater focus on environmental justice in its policy-making – ensuring that poor communities do not become ‘sacrifice zones’ for environmental waste in the future. 

What Now?

Environmental justice is something that we can all participate in – from educating ourselves about the links between structural racism and the environmental burdens faced by underprivileged communities, to asking whether new proposed environmental policies are equitable and uphold everyone’s right to a safe environment. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and consider what a ‘green recovery’ looks like, we have an opportunity to recenter environmental justice in our daily conversations and our advocacy to ensure that environmental policies benefit low-income communities and repair any disproportionate harms that they face.

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In the Makoko neighbourhood of Lagos, Nigeria – dubbed the ‘Venice of Africa’ – churches, schools, and houses alike are perched on top of stilts, floating above the rising waterline below. As the most populous city in Africa, home to more than 24 million inhabitants, the coastal city of Lagos is also one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rise and may be wiped off the map by as early as 2050. Unfortunately, as we know, Lagos is not alone. States sinking in the face of climate crisis seems almost painfully inevitable; in fact, Abaiang in Kiribati and two small islands are already entirely submerged. What’s more, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, low-lying island states are likely to be uninhabitable long before their full submersion and, with limited adaptation possibilities, citizens of such states may have to migrate. This will affect an estimated 2.4 billion people who live in coastal regions and will be impacted by rising sea levels. What happens to the statehood of an island when it sinks?

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This article looks at the legal implications of sinking states: What happens when a state permanently loses its entire territory or its entire population has no choice but to go into exile? Is the island state still a statehood, or does it lose this status when it sinks? What about the population – do they become stateless, and where will they move to? These are all questions worth considering as climate change and extreme weather put our coasts under siege.

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Territory as a Criteria for Statehood in International Law

Statehood is important for many reasons – states can enter into agreements with other states, gain membership in international organisations like the UN, and exercise sovereignty and self-determination. States also take on certain obligations, such as not violating jus cogens (principles which cannot be set aside) norms like genocide or slavery. Given its importance, statehood has a clear and concise legal criteria, provided in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States. In order to qualify as a state, a state must have: ‘(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other States’. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees notes, although there is no legal precedent for the loss of a state’s entire territory or exile of its entire population, where such a situation is permanent, we can immediately see that, without a defined territory, statehood becomes uncertain; if statehood ceases, the population is de facto stateless. Seen in this light, a defined territory is especially integral, as without state territory, there is no physical basis for an organised community or effective government. 

Presumption of Continuity of Statehood When an Island State Sinks

However, this does not necessarily mean that a state without a defined territory is no longer a state. In his influential book, The Creation of States in International Law, James Crawford posits that there is a presumption of continuity of statehood. He argues, quite convincingly, that even if territory is lost or gained which is substantially greater in area than the former state territory, this does not have to affect continuity. Indeed, when we look back at rump states – recall how Pakistan, a rump state, lost half of its territory by the secession of Bangladesh in 1971 – or governments in temporary exile like the Belgian government in London between 1940 and 1944 during World War II, it is apparent that the criteria in the Montevideo Convention relating to territory are not absolute and are applied less strictly once a state is established. This aligns with Gerard Kreijen’s suggestion in State Failure, Sovereignty and Effectiveness, that states “may have a complicated birth, but they do not die easily.” What’s also worth noting is the low threshold required for a defined territory; the Vatican City – 0.44 square kilometres with a population of 825 – passes the threshold for statehood. In terms of climate change, Crawford’s presumption of continuity of states along with a more flexible definitional account of statehood seems to suggest that sinking states can preserve their statehood, even after their territory becomes uninhabitable or entirely submerged due to climate change. 

But What About the People?

With the possible continuity of statehood, there comes the real question of where the people of sinking states will go. While New Zealand and Australia have hosted up to 8,000 people for seasonal unskilled employment, there are currently no legally binding agreements that protect climate migrants. This is despite the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration – a non-binding but influential statement – which includes a specific section emphasising the need to develop coherent approaches to address the challenges of migration movements caused by natural disasters. 

Proposed Solutions to Maintain Statehood When an Island State Sinks 

Until a precedent is established in law, our discussion on statehood and climate change inundation can only be speculative. At the same time, it does highlight the necessity for legal, political, geographical and migratory frameworks to be built before states are entirely submerged, as well as demonstrating the lack of such frameworks in our current legal regime. Legal scholars, architects and scientists alike have started to propose and engineer solutions for states to maintain statehood. 

Maxine Burkett, a Law Professor at the University of Hawai’i, demands the recognition of a ‘nation ex-situ’, or a deterritorialized state with ongoing international recognition as a state and with its citizens spread across the globe. Emphasising our freedom of contemporary global movement, the multiple and diverse diasporas in our societies, and cosmopolitanism – the belief that all human beings belong to a single global community – Burkett suggests that deterritorialized statehood is not far-fetched. While Burkett acknowledges that her analogy is not entirely complete, since members of diaspora have the option to remain in a tangible home-territory, she states that the trend of dispersed residence already disrupts the condition of territory in international law. This is an interesting suggestion and with the necessary coordination between the deterritorialized state, the host state or states, and the international community of states, might perhaps work. Indeed, Kiribati’s long-term strategy is merits-based, planned migration with dignity to Australia and New Zealand, which falls squarely within Burkett’s proposal.  

Another solution may be for states to try and stay afloat. The Makoko neighbourhood of Lagos, while lacking access to electricity, is home to innovations like the first iteration of the Makoko Floating School – a ‘sustainable, ecological, alternative’ floating structure built to withstand climate change. While the School tragically collapsed in 2016, due to deterioration from heavy wind and rainfall, it has inspired further iterations of floating architecture, including a floating music hub in São Vicente, Cape Verde due for completion in 2021. Oceanix, founded by the minister of tourism of French Polynesia Marc Collins Chen, is another company that is proposing to build floating sustainable cities in the ocean. Coastal fortification and land reclamation may also enhance resilience against rising tides.

Migration management is a final solution. Regular migration pathways are important to ensure that those among the 2.4 billion people at risk of moving have their rights protected and able to maintain their livelihoods. Dina Ionesco, Head of the Migration, Environment, and Climate Change Division at the UN Migration Agency suggests the implementation of humanitarian visas, temporary protection, and regional and bilateral free movements’ agreements to facilitate migration in response to environmental factors. 

Time is running out. Islands have already started to submerge, and the risk of cities sinking will only increase as sea-levels continue to rise. The population of Hong Kong will be displaced as our city slips underwater if global temperatures rise 4 degrees Celsius. Now is the time to start looking for and implementing creative legal, humanitarian and architectural solutions to ensure that states preserve their continuity and protect their populations from harm. 

Featured image by: Flickr 

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From Biden rejoining the Paris Agreement hours after his inauguration to the much-awaited, once-postponed UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow later this year (COP26), 2021 is already promising to be an eventful year for environmental law. Not only will politicians have their hands full with planning a “green recovery” from COVID-19, courts around the world will soon be hearing cases brought by young activists and environmental organisations to hold corporations and governments accountable for contributing to climate change. Let’s take a look at some of the environmental law cases on the docket in 2021 and what favourable rulings could mean. 

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1. UN Launches Investigation into Global Shipping Industry 

2021 has started off with a bang, with the UN’s Human Rights Office launching an inquiry into the shipping industry’s use of toxic fuels, looking deeper into the human rights abuses seafarers and those impacted by oil spills suffer as a result of exposure to these highly volatile and hazardous chemicals without their prior consent. The UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights is currently collecting submissions from the International Maritime Organization and other shipping stakeholders and will subsequently release a report with recommendations on best practices for the shipping industry to prevent marine and chemical pollution. 

This investigation is important, because 90% of goods are transported by ship globally. The ship fuel used in 70% of all ships is called Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil (VLSFO), a super-pollutant “Frankenstein fuel” made by thinning heavy fuel oil with blends of diesel or kerosene. Although VLSFO was originally introduced to comply with the sulphur cap placed on heavy fuel oil, it in fact emits higher concentrations of black carbon and soot into the atmosphere than heavy fuel oil and was found responsible for shipping disasters like the Mauritius Oil spill in July. Not only is VLSFO worse for the environment, it poses a threat to human rights. VLSFO places seafarers’ life at risk by increasing the likelihood of fires, explosions and engine failure and, if spilled, may lead to persistent health issues for coastal communities. The Special Rapporteur’s report, although legally non-binding, will provide a standard for the global shipping industry to be held accountable to, whether that be in the court of law or public opinion in the future.

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2. Youth-Led Climate Activism Surges

Another trend to look forward to in 2021 is youth climate activists around the world suing their governments for violating their constitutional right to life, health and equality by taking insufficient action against climate change. Cases are on foot in the US, Korea and Canada. Of note is the case of Sacchi et al. v Argentina et al. filed in 2019 by Greta Thunberg and 15 other children against Brazil, Argentina, France, Turkey and Germany for violating their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to the child’s best interest by perpetuating climate change, which is still pending before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

It will be interesting to see the results of these cases in the coming year and whether governments will be penalised for their continuing inaction on climate change. Similar youth climate cases have had mixed success in the past in courts. In 2018, the Supreme Court of Colombia ruled in favour of 25 youth activists, who argued that increased deforestation of the Amazon violated their rights to a healthy environment and life. Conversely, in 2020, the Canadian Federal Court dismissed a case brought by 15 youth activists claiming that their constitutional rights to life, liberty and equality were violated by the Canadian government, who had not done enough to prevent climate change, finding that Canada’s response to climate change was a purely political matter for the legislature and executive to decide, not the judiciary. 

3. Activists Going After Fossil Fuel Companies 

Following the success of the Urgenda case in late 2019 – which ordered the Dutch government to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% compared to 1990 by 2020 – more than 17 000 Dutch activists are renewing their efforts by going after oil giant Shell, asking the court to order Shell to commit to reducing its carbon emissions by 45% compared to 1990 levels by 2030. They argue that Shell, which together with Exxon, BP, and Chevron is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions since 1965, has been aware of the dangers of climate change for years and is not doing enough to transition away from fossil fuels. Specifically, Shell’s policy committing to being a “net zero” emissions company by 2050 by investing in cleaner fuels fails to decrease absolute emission and merely “[tinkers] around the edges,” since Shell can simultaneously expand its fossil fuel business while meeting its “net zero” goal. A similar complaint against French oil company Total is on foot.

This case follows the shift away from liability suits requiring corporations to pay damages for polluting the environment, to human-rights based suits, which will ideally hasten the creation of environmental policies and behavioural shifts. If Shell loses, it could send a powerful message to fossil fuel companies, investors and other corporate polluters that businesses have an obligation to ensure their operations and strategy account for climate change and could encourage a flood of litigation in other countries. The verdict in the Shell case will be handed down in May.  

Looking Forward to 2021

Whether these pending environmental law cases are ultimately successful or not, they will be a crucial wake-up call for governments and corporations to revisit and strengthen their climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments for the future of humanity and our planet, in 2021 and beyond. The UN COP26 presents a window of opportunity for our leaders to raise their “climate ambitions.” We hope that big strides will be made in 2021, as environmental law cases continue to be wielded as a tool to hold our leaders accountable for contributing to climate change.

Featured image by: Flickr

The post 3 Environmental Law Cases to Watch Out For in 2021 appeared first on Earth.Org.

While 2020 was a tumultuous year for climate change- think of the Californian and Australian bushfires, massive locust swarms, and Antarctic ‘green snow’- it was full of environmental law breakthroughs. From a historic UN Human Rights Committee decision that opened the door to future climate refugees to migrate to other countries, to the quashing of Ireland’s “excessively vague and aspirational” climate change mitigation plan, let’s take a look back at some of the most noteworthy legal cases of 2020. 

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Amping up Protections for Climate Refugees: Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand

2020 heralded a major decision that amped up legal protections for “climate refugees,” referring to those seeking refuge from the adverse effects of climate change. In its first landmark ruling on climate refugees Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand, the UN Human Rights Committee held that receiving states cannot deport individuals facing climate change-induced conditions that infringe their right to life. 

Ioane Teitiota brought this case before the Committee in 2015, claiming that New Zealand had violated his right to life by removing him and his family back to Kiribati. He claimed that Kiribati had become an “untenable and violent environment” for them due to the adverse effects of sea level rise, which included coastal erosion and regular flooding, scarcity in habitable space leading to violent land disputes and saltwater contamination of freshwater supply. In 2013, he and his family’s refugee claim was rejected by the New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal, on the grounds that there was no evidence of life-threatening environmental conditions in Kiribati and that sufficient protection measures had been implemented by the Kiribati Government to protect its citizens from climate change. They were subsequently deported back to Kiribati.

While the Committee’s ruling did not change the outcome of Teitiota’s case- since the Committee ultimately found that the Kiribati Government could take affirmative measures to protect and relocate its citizens in the next 10 to 15 years before Kiribati became uninhabitable – Committee expert Yuval Shany praised this ruling for “[setting] forth new standards that could facilitate the success of future climate change-related asylum claims.” Notably, the Committee accepted that climate change and environmental degradation threatens the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life. Extreme environmental risks, including the submersion of an entire country, may cause living conditions to become incompatible with the right to life with dignity even before the risk is realised. As such, the Committee clarified that climate refugees need not prove that they will face imminent harm if returned to their home countries, effectively extending refugee protections to those fleeing from slow-onset processes like sea level rise. The Committee also held that without robust national and international efforts, the effects of climate change may expose individuals to violations of their right to life, thereby triggering an obligation on climate refugee-receiving states to refrain from expelling these individuals to their home state, where they would be in danger of being subjected to irreparable harm – in other words, enlivening the non-refoulement obligation of climate refugee-receiving states. Moving forward, this case may open up the doors for future climate refugees to migrate to other countries and clarifies the legal burden they have to meet.

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Continuing the “Human Rights Turn”: Lhaka Honhat Association v Argentina

Another significant decision in 2020 was handed down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Lhaka Honhat Association v Argentina. This was the first contentious case where the Inter-American Court ruled on a violation of the right to a healthy environment, continuing the trend of using human rights arguments as the dominant climate litigation strategy, coined the “human rights turn.” It was also the first Inter-American Court case related to an Indigenous claim in Argentina and a “first sign of justice for a centuries-old debt” to the Lhaka Honhat, an association of 132 Indigenous communities located in the Salta province in Argentina. 

This case was first brought to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in August 1998 by the Lhaka Honhat, representing more than 10 000 Indigenous individuals, who alleged that the Argentinian Government had not provided full legal recognition of title to their ancestral lands. Indigenous representatives alleged that the Government had violated their property rights, guaranteed under Article 21 of the American Convention on Human Rights, by allowing the continued co-existence of other communities on their ancestral lands and permitting activities like uncontrolled cattle grazing and illegal logging that damaged their environment, food and cultural identity. 

The Inter-American Court upheld the violation of property rights by Argentina, noting that the special character of Indigenous ancestral lands and the dependence of Indigenous communities on these lands placed a greater due diligence burden on governments, such that Indigenous peoples must enjoy their traditional way of life, benefit from any activities carried out on their territory, and participate in free, prior and informed consultations. Given that the Argentinian Government had failed to take sufficient action to ensure that the Indigenous communities could enjoy their property without interference, they had breached their due diligence obligations. 

The Court made valuable observations on the autonomous right to a healthy environment, which it derived from Article 26 of the American Convention providing for “progressive development of economic, social, educational, scientific and cultural standards.” It established that the right to a healthy environment was intricately linked with the right to food, water and cultural identity, and that states had an obligation not only to respect these rights, but also an obligation to prevent third parties from violating them, since they were a “universal interest” and “fundamental for the existence of humanity.” On the facts, Argentina failed to guarantee the Indigenous communities their property rights, which in turn detrimentally affected their traditional way of life and violated their rights to water, food and a healthy environment. Moving forward, this case will be a valuable precedent for how states should attend to the needs of Indigenous peoples and, more generally, the right to a healthy environment. 

Challenging Inadequate Government Policy: Friends of the Irish Environment v Ireland

Praised by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd, as a “landmark decision,” the Supreme Court in Friends of the Irish Environment v Ireland quashed the Irish Government’s National Mitigation Plan for climate change, because it was not “sufficiently specific” as to how the mitigation targets laid out in the plan would be met over the whole period to 2050. Such specificity was important, so as to enable members of the public to judge whether the plan is “effective and appropriate” for meeting the national mitigation targets by 2050. The Court’s willingness to hold the Irish Government to account is not only monumental for Irish climate law, it also provides a standard against which to judge other governments’ climate plans and a possible basis for litigation in other countries.

Climate Protesters on Trial: Credit Suisse Protesters Trial

Following intense climate protests in 2019 like Extinction Rebellion’s, many protesters were arrested and charged. 2020 saw some of these protesters put on trial. In Switzerland, it was a tumultuous year for twelve climate protesters, mostly students, who had occupied a Credit Suisse branch to protest against its fossil fuel investments and were subsequently charged with trespassing and fined. The protesters initially had their fines overturned, because a District Court judge held that the protesters’ actions were necessary and proportional to the imminent danger of the climate crisis, which the Swiss Government had contributed to by failing to take sufficient measures against climate change. The protesters used a novel defence called the “state of necessity,” arguing that their actions were required due to the urgency of climate change. 

Later in September, the protesters were once again found guilty of trespassing on appeal. While the Appeal Court agreed that the danger of climate change was “imminent,” it held that the defendants could have employed other means of protesting. It will be interesting to see how courts approach the trial of climate protesters in the future.  

Summing up 2020’s Litigation Lessons

2020 was a year full of noteworthy environmental law cases. Looking back, we can see that climate litigation was a useful tool to clarify environmental obligations, initiate new climate change mitigation measures or challenge existing measures, and protect the human rights of vulnerable groups. As we continue to battle with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and consider how to rebuild and strengthen our environmental systems, climate litigation may remain as important as ever.     

The post 2020 in Review: Noteworthy Environmental Legal Cases appeared first on Earth.Org.

In December 2019 at the 18th Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC), ambassadors of the Maldives and Vanuatu called for 123 nations to extend the Court’s jurisdiction to ecocide. While the Maldives and Vanuatu acknowledged that an ecocide amendment was still somewhat of a “radical idea,” the time was ripe, given how serious the threat of climate change is to their soon-to-be submerged small island nations. Pope Francis, Emmanuel Macron, Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai have joined those calling on world leaders to make ecocide the fifth crime against peace, alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. With the devastating impacts of climate change becoming more apparent by the day, is it time for an ecocide amendment to be passed, more than 20 years after the ICC was established? 

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Ecocide’s Origins 

Colloquially, ecocide refers to the “devastation and destruction of the environment to the detriment of life,” but no legal definition has yet been agreed upon among states. While ecocide has gained traction recently, it is an idea that has been floated for decades. Ecocide was first introduced by biology professor Arthur W. Galston in the 1970s during the Vietnam War, when he was actively protesting the US military using Agent Orange to destroy the foliage cover and crops of enemy troops. Indeed, environmental destruction often occurs during human conflict, a modern example being the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi forces sett alight oil fields as they withdrew from Kuwait 

The idea of ecocide was then picked up by law professor Harry W. Pettigrew, who argued in 1971 in his article “A Constitutional Right of Freedom from Ecocide” that the Ninth Amendment of the US Constitution supports the existence of a right to freedom from ecocide. He posited that, since we have an absolute right to protection of life, and due process is needed to secure our rights against the state, we should also enjoy a right to freedom from ecocidal acts which substantially threaten life itself. Ecocide was initially included in the draft of the Rome Statute in 1991, but was dropped because of strong resistance from the Netherlands, France and the UK.

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Towards an Ecocide Amendment

Since then, many civil society organisations and lawyers have supported the criminalisation of ecocide in international law. In 2010, Scottish barrister and environmentalist Polly Higgins introduced a proposal to the UN Law Commission to amend the Rome Statute to include ecocide. Her proposed amendment covered acts or omissions committed in peacetime or war by any senior person within the course of State, corporate, or other entity, which causes widespread or long-term “ecological, climate or cultural loss” or “damage to or destruction of ecosystems and territories” that severely diminishes inhabitants’ peaceful enjoyment of these ecosystems and territories.

In 2016, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor in its “Policy paper on case selection and prioritisation” declared that it would prioritise the prosecution of the four Rome Statute crimes committed by means of “illegal exploitation of natural resources,” “land grabbing,” and the “destruction of the environment.” While the policy paper was significant as it entrenched a “green” approach to interpreting the Rome Statute, the Office of the Prosecutor ultimately could not extend the ICC’s jurisdiction without a formal amendment to the Rome Statute, which has not yet been forthcoming.

Failures of Current International Environmental Law Regime

Given that ecocide is currently only considered a war crime under Rome Statute Article 8(2)(b)(iv), only environmental damage in times of war can be prosecuted. However, no charges have been filed, possibly due to the very high threshold of injury required under the Article – there must be an intentional attack that causes “widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment which would be clearly excessive.” Corporate and state criminal responsibility is also excluded under the Rome Statute. Thus, corporations and states that cause water and air pollution, or participate in illegal deforestation and cause oil spills during peacetime cannot be prosecuted for their environmental damage.

International environmental law also lacks frameworks to deal with mass environmental damage and destruction. A 2018 UN Report found the environmental law regime we currently have to be fragmented, piecemeal, unclear and reactive. With no single overarching legal framework or institution and largely voluntary and non-binding obligations, international environmental law cannot be used to prosecute ecocide. Although at least two environmental treaties – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal – require states to create domestic criminal laws on specific subjects, they are “episodic and limited in scope,” only applying within state boundaries, and do not extend to ecocide more generally.  

Why Should Ecocide Become a Crime?

According to environmentalist George Monbiot, criminalising ecocide is the “difference between a habitable and an uninhabitable planet.” By making ecocide a crime, individuals, corporations and states can be held criminally liable for their destructive anthropogenic environmental degradation and damage, that result in the irreversible transformation of natural environments. Currently, there is a missing responsibility to protect both the Earth and humanity, which allows “state-sanctioned industrial and corporate immunity” for ecocidal acts. An international crime against ecocide would force culpable CEOs and heads of state to accept personal accountability for ecocide and climate change, compelling them to consider the environmental consequences of their actions, even if and especially when there are transboundary effects. This proactive approach to preventing environmental disasters and their attendant human rights violations from occurring goes some ways to remedying the shortfalls of the international environmental law regime.

Normatively, listing ecocide as a crime against peace sets an ideological and “moral red line” for destroying the environment which perpetrators cannot fall below, even if they ultimately are not prosecuted by the ICC. It is an expression of international intolerance and moral outrage towards ecocide and provides tools for lawyers and civil society to speak out against this unacceptable crime. It also accurately reflects existential threat that ecocidal activities pose to the very existence of humanity, and underlines that we live in a state of emergency – with only 10 more years left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change – and are in dire need of what Pope Francis calls a “moral awakening.” 

Remaining Challenges 

Amending the Rome Statute is no easy feat. Any member state can propose an ecocide amendment, which cannot be vetoed and must then be passed by a two-thirds majority. This two-thirds majority may be difficult to achieve, given that powerful states’ economies – think China, Russia, or US – depend on anthropocentric environmental damage, and despite not being parties to the ICC, they can exert their influence over other smaller states to vote against an amendment. At the same time, the amendment process may be advantageous to smaller countries, as all countries have an equal vote regardless of their size.

Before an amendment can even be made, a definition of ecocide must be agreed upon. We can draw inspiration from states that have already criminalised ecocide within its borders, like France, Kazakhstan and Moldova. 

So where do we go from here? Your voice is important. You can read more about ecocide on Stop Ecocide and look at their helpful summary of ways you can take action, including signing their international petition to voice your support for making ecocide an international crime. At the end of the day, the more we talk about ecocide and other “radical” environmental movements, the less “radical” these ideas become and the more likely our leaders will begin to rally behind them.

Featured image by: Flickr

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