From Policy to Practice: Operationalising Environmental Justice

[Maud Sarliève and Dr Pauline Martini are associate research fellows at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London]

On 4 December 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched its groundbreaking Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage under the Rome Statute: severe environmental harm can now be prosecuted as an international crime. This document represents a significant development in international criminal law (ICL), clarifying that environmental destruction may lead to criminal accountability for individuals, and not to merely regulatory sanctions or civil liability.

For those on the frontlines of such devastation—from Indigenous populations in the Amazon to civilians downstream of the Nova Kakhovka dam—this policy offers formal recognition of harms that have long demanded legal redress. These violations are prevalent around the world, yet impunity has persisted, in part due to gaps in the operational capacity needed to effectively investigate and prosecute environmental crimes

As Professor Kevin Jon Heller, the OTP’s Special Adviser on War Crimes and lead drafter of the document, stated “environmental damage poses an existential threat to all life on the planet, human and non-human alike. The ICC cannot singlehandedly prosecute everyone who causes such damage. But it can—and must—play its part in international efforts to promote environmental justice.” 

The OTP’s Policy represents an important step forward, situating itself within a rapidly evolving legal landscape where environmental protection and accountability are gaining unprecedented recognition. Yet significant gaps remain in translating this framework into successful prosecutions—from standardised investigation methodologies to specialised capacity building. A new multi-stakeholder initiative seeks to address these critical operational challenges, providing practitioners at the international and national levels with the practical tools necessary to effectively document environmental and climate harm and help turn the promise of justice into tangible accountability and justice for victims.

A Transformative Moment for Environmental Justice

The Policy emerges at a transformative moment. Released just one day after the Council of Europe (CoE) opened its Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law for signature, and following recent advisory opinions from both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice on States’ climate obligations, it contributes to a broader shift—environmental and climate destruction is increasingly subject to legal accountability.

An important distinction warrants emphasis here. While the CoE Convention and advisory opinions focus on States’ obligations, the OTP Policy targets individuals—corporate executives, government officials and military commanders—whose decisions directly contribute to environmental harm. This aligns with the established framework that holds individuals accountable for crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. The Policy clarifies that environmental damage can be factually relevant in establishing these crimes.

From Vision to Operational Framework

The Policy builds upon the OTP’s 2016 commitment to prioritise crimes involving environmental destruction, land grabbing and resource exploitation, raising civil society hopes for prosecutions of environmental crimes. What distinguishes the 2025 Policy is its operational specificity: it provides prosecutors with concrete guidance on when environmental damage intersects with Rome Statute crimes, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. It does not create new crimes; rather, it clarifies how existing provisions, such as Article 8(2)(b)(iv) on excessive environmental damage committed during international armed conflicts, should be interpreted and applied in contexts of environmental harm.

Three aspects of this policy demand particular attention. First, it addresses the evidentiary challenges inherent in prosecuting environmental crimes, acknowledging the complexity of establishing causal links between individual decision-making and diffuse environmental harm. Second, it recognises environmental damage both as a standalone war crime and as a contextual element of other crimes—a dual approach that expands prosecutorial options. Third, it explicitly incorporates consideration of harm to affected communities, moving beyond purely ecological metrics to encompass human security and human health dimensions.

Through these innovations, the Policy sets an ambitious vision that could catalyse a long-awaited shift in how the OTP investigates and prosecutes such cases. More importantly perhaps, the Policy has the potential to foster investigations and prosecutions of environmental harm at the domestic level, consistent with the principle of positive complementarity.    

However, translating this vision into practice at both the national and international levels requires overcoming significant legal, institutional and practical challenges, which the Policy partially acknowledges.

Uncharted Legal Territory

The current legal landscape remains largely unexplored. Environmental harm often unfolds over years or even decades, crossing multiple jurisdictions. Damage frequently results from decisions made within corporate structures, making it particularly challenging to establish connections between decision-making and large-scale environmental destruction. For example, ICL has yet to resolve how to hold individuals criminally accountable for actions or omissions within multinational corporations, as no established standards exist for attributing environmental or climate impacts to specific corporate decisions, nor are there tested methods for demonstrating criminal intent in cases involving environmental harm.

The Evidentiary Chain

Perhaps the greatest obstacle lies in coordinating the multi-party evidence collection necessary to support criminal prosecutions. In addition to spanning over time, and possibly multiple actors, environmental crimes are also complex geographically, involving distant connections between intentional actions or inactions by states or corporations, environmental damage and victim suffering. Documenting such crimes requires scientific experts who understand the specific nature of environmental harm and can adapt investigative approaches on a case-by-case basis.

These challenges become particularly tangible in the wake of disasters such as the Nova Kakhovka dam destruction, or amid widespread deforestation. Affected communities possess firsthand knowledge of what has changed, i.e. the impacts on their lives, health, habitats and the broader environment. This knowledge is irreplaceable, making their meaningful engagement—especially that of Indigenous peoples who hold ancestral expertise about their land, water, natural resources and ecosystems—not merely beneficial but essential.

Victims as Essential Partners

Without collaboration with affected communities, critical information risks being lost. Civil society organisations, scientists and other experts must therefore work alongside victims to analyse contaminated soil, polluted water and damaged habitats based on what communities have observed and endured. Such partnerships ensure investigations capture not only ecological damage but also human impacts on life, health and livelihoods, translating lived experience into the empirical data required for prosecution.

However, victim engagement alone is insufficient. Successful prosecution requires a complete evidentiary chain: trained investigators who can ensure collected evidence meets admissibility standards; skilled lawyers who can present that material to satisfy legal thresholds; and judges equipped to assess complex scientific and testimonial evidence. Without clear investigative frameworks, adequately trained professionals at each stage, and sufficient resources to support victims throughout this lengthy process, the Policy’s promise may remain unrealised.

Resource Constraints and Capacity Development

Effective implementation of the Policy requires adequate resources and specialised expertise. Whilst these challenges affect both domestic and international actors and are broadly similar in nature, they have different implications at each level. At the OTP, resource constraints primarily shape strategic prioritisation, as the Office must balance multiple global priorities, making the allocation of additional capacity to environmental harm particularly challenging. At the domestic level, where authorities bear primary responsibility for investigating and prosecuting such harm, comparable constraints more directly affect operational capacity and enforcement.

Accordingly, strengthening institutional capacity and building specialised expertise in environmental investigations are essential and should be prioritised at both OTP and national levels—an approach that has proven effective in other areas, such as gender-based violence and crimes against children. As noted above, supporting prosecutors across jurisdictions requires practical tools, standardised methodologies and technical guidance, many of which are still being developed to meet the evolving demands of this field.

A Multi-Stakeholder Response

Responding to this gap, five organisations launched a joint initiative in June 2025—six months before the Policy’s official release—to develop practical, operational guidelines for investigating and documenting environmental destruction. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, Justice Rapid Response, Physicians for Human Rights, Source International and  TRIAL International bring together complementary expertise: academic research, rapid deployment of criminal justice experts, medical-forensic documentation, open-source intelligence and ICL practice.

The Guidelines aim to equip a broad range of actors—investigators, prosecutors, civil society organisations, affected communities, and other frontline responders—with practical tools and methodologies for effectively documenting and investigating environmental international crimes. Whilst the Guidelines support implementation of the OTP’s Policy and assist those providing information to the Court, they are designed for application across multiple jurisdictions and contexts, including domestic prosecutions, universal jurisdiction cases and civil society documentation efforts.

The initiative is grounded in a fundamental principle: interdisciplinary collaboration must begin at the investigation stage, not at the courtroom door. Through expert consultations in Geneva, it convened civil society organisations, environmental and human rights lawyers from international and domestic jurisdictions, investigators, scientists and climate specialists to identify the concrete tools practitioners need across different legal systems and contexts.

The initiative’s goals directly address the operational gaps identified above: standardised protocols for evidence collection, guidance on working with affected communities, frameworks for establishing causal links between state or corporate decisions and environmental harm, and training programmes that bridge legal and scientific expertise. These are not theoretical exercises but field-ready solutions designed to support environmental justice efforts at domestic, regional and international levels.

From Aspiration to Action

The OTP’s Policy sends a historic signal in a landscape where legal and political systems have too often failed to address environmental harm and climate change. By providing prosecutors with a framework to integrate environmental considerations into investigations, it creates the potential for genuine deterrence among corporate executives, military commanders and political leaders who authorise activities with severe environmental consequences. The principle of individual criminal liability for environmental harm, and the consequences arising therefrom such as imprisonment, establish accountability mechanisms that transcend the limited impact of corporate fines or interstate dispute resolution.

However, signals alone cannot deliver justice. Meaningful impact demands sustained investment in the infrastructure of accountability: standardised investigative protocols, interdisciplinary training programmes and field-ready methodologies that enable investigations and prosecutions at both national and international levels. These are not optional enhancements but essential prerequisites. Without them, mass environmental destruction will continue with impunity.

The initiative launched in June 2025 demonstrates that such capacity can be built through collective action and interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet far more is required—from states providing resources and political support, from international organisations integrating environmental justice into their mandates, and from civil society maintaining pressure and expertise. The legal foundation is now clearer. What remains is to build the practice at the international and national levels—through resources, expertise and political will adapt to the existential threat environmental destruction poses. The gap between aspiration and accountability can be closed, but only through decisive, coordinated action that matches the scale of the crisis we face.