New Tools for Environmental Defence in the Mediterranean: Recognition of the Crime of Ecocide

3 November 2022. From 18:30 | Conference | English | IEMed

Demonstrators are calling for a real climate law to match the ecological emergency. (Photo by Denis Thaust / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

Inaugural session of the Aula Mediterrània 2022-2023 conference cycle with the participation of the executive president of the IEMed, Senén Florensa, and Miquel Royo, Secretary for Foreign Action of the Government, Generalitat de Catalunya.

This conference explores the international movement in favor of the recognition of ecocide as a crime under International and European Law. The current state of the law shows that International Environmental Law only provides norms criminalizing acts of environmental harm which are very limited in number and scope and there is yet no legal recognition at customary level of a general category of environmental crimes. At the European level, given the failure of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law, the only relevant regime is offered by the European Union (EU) Directive 2008/99/EC on the protection of the environment through criminal law, and the proposal for a new directive approved on 15 December 2021. This conference offers a survey of the development of international law with regard to the legal definition and consequences of environmental crimes, while examining the latest definition of ecocide as formulated in June 2021 by the Panel of Independent Experts convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. It also expands on EU law and the support given by the European Union to the recognition of the crime of ecocide while assessing the importance of such recognition for the protection of the environment in the Mediterranean region.

Stefania Negri is associate professor of International Law at UNISA School of Law, where she teaches Public International Law and International Health and Environmental Law. She is also the founder and director of the Observatory on Human Rights: Bioethics, Health, Environment (ODUBSA). Her research interests and publications are mainly focused on human rights, international environmental law, international criminal law and international health and biomedical law. Some of her more recent publications are “On Meteors and Comets: Is the Crime of Ecocide Back to Stay?: Environmental Crimes at the Interface of Philosophy, the Law of State Responsibility and International Criminal Law” (International Criminal Law Review, 2022); “Climate Change and Global Health: Exploring Regime Interaction and the Role of the Right to Health Argument in International Climate Litigation” (International Community Law Review, 2022); “On Sea Monsters and Sandcastles: Revisiting International Legal Frameworks regarding Public Health and Human Rights in Global Health Emergencies” (Yearbook of International Disaster Law Online, 2022), co-written with Alicia Ely Yamin and Roojin Habibi; Environmental Health in International and EU Law: Current Challenges and Legal Responses (Routledge, 2019).

Conference moderated by Laura Huici, Associate Professor of Public International Law and International Relations, Adjoint Director of the Master’s, UB. Co-organised by the IEMed as part of the Aula Mediterrània 2022-23 programme in collaboration with the Master’s in International Studies – International Organizations and Cooperation, UB.

This conference takes place at the IEMed conference room, Girona, 20 – Barcelona and it can also be followed on IEMed Youtube Channel.