Symposium on the Use of International Criminal Law to Protect the Environment

[Kate Mackintosh is the Executive Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the UCLA School of Law. This is part of a series of blog posts examining International Criminal Law and the Protection of the Environment, and stems from an expert meeting group convened at the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law in February 2020.]

Despite the brief drop in emissions at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic last month, the climate crisis continues to present one of the greatest threats to humanity, with climate related risks taking the top 5 spots in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report.  Earlier this year, a group of scholars and practitioners convened at the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law to consider how international criminal law could be mobilized in the face of this threat, to protect our environment and halt or mitigate climate change. This symposium builds on that meeting in a series of posts that explore issues such as how current and emerging law could be used, what elements a new law might contain, how corporate actors could be included and how current capacity could be strengthened.

Posts in this series:

• Richard Rogers, The Environmental Crisis: Cases for ‘Particular Consideration’ at the ICC
• Darryl Robinson, Environmental Crimes Against Humanity
• Reinhold Gallmetzer & Nema Milaninia, Establishing Facts for Strategic Climate Litigation Through Private-Public Partnerships
• Kate Mackintosh, Can Ecocide Save the Planet? An International Crime of Climate Change
• Maud Sarlieve, Which Future for the Crime of Ecocide?
• Jelena Aparac, Part I: International Criminal Law as a Tool for Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Crimes and Part II: International Criminal Courts as Potential Jurisdiction for Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Crimes