International Human Rights Law

Broadening Horizons: Ecocide, Famine and the “Other” Crimes

If you can't see it, it can't and doesn't really matter that much. That seems to be the attitude of many of us to key issues of international concern. Take for example, a core contradiction in many people's hesitation to support the adoption of a carbon tax to combat climate change: it's fine to tax the trash we put out on the curb, but it's not fine to tax the trash we put in the air. The state of international criminal law privileges direct forms of violence. This is an extension of the dominant understanding of peace as negative peace, the absence of large-scale, direct forms of violence. The holy trinity of international crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – constitutes physical violence perpetrated against victims. While the criminalization of some acts which “shock the conscience of humanity” is surely one of the most important developments in contemporary international politics, it has, perhaps inevitably, come at the expense of more structural or indirect forms of violence. Famine becomes something to support with donations and sympathy but not an issue for which anyone can be held responsible. Neglecting to protect vulnerable populations in the wake of environmental disasters becomes a challenge for humanitarian aid rather than an issue of criminal neglect. The real and potential destruction of peoples' livelihood through environmental degradation becomes a matter of business, job-creation and green politics and not a matter of justice – even when it risks eviscerating entire nations. Indeed, what about the more silent killers which threaten the life and livelihood of millions of people? There are those who have begun to challenge the monopoly of international crimes as direct forms of violence. This past week in London, a mock trial was held at the British Supreme Court where top lawyers played out two cases: one concerning the extraction of oil in Canada's notorious tar sands and one regarding BP's disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The charge? Ecocide, defined by its most forceful champions, Polly Higgins as:

“The extensive damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.”

While the notion of ecocide is an attempt to criminalize large-scale environmental degradation, it is critical to highlight, in this context, how environmental degradation can create human death and suffering. This is not to be anthropocentric. But a much under-examined reality within international justice is the indirect, structural violence that is inflicted when states shirk their responsibilities to protect citizens from the effects of environmental trauma – whether from ecocide or natural disasters.