DRC becomes first African nation to formally endorse the creation of an international crime of ecocide, following September 2024 proposal from Pacific nations to add ecocide to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Azerbaijan's parliament, the Milli Majlis, has passed the first reading of a bill that would introduce the crime of ecocide into the country's Criminal Code. Proposed by President Ilham Aliyev, the bill seeks to impose custodial sentences of 10 to 15 years for those convicted of committing severe environmental damage.

NEW YORK, 09 SEPTEMBER 2024: The crime of ecocide was formally introduced for consideration by member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) —an event that represents a major step forward in the global effort to enshrine mass environmental destruction as a crime under international law.

The Global Commons Survey 2024, conducted by Ipsos UK and commissioned by Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance (GCA), found that 72% of people across G20 countries agree that the most severe forms of environmental harm—increasingly known as Ecocide —- should be a crime. 

On Thursday, September 5, the Congress of the Republic of Peru convened a Technical Committee to review a proposal aimed at criminalising ecocide within the country’s national penal code. The new legal text consolidates three bills recently submitted to Congress, and incorporates the main elements of the consensus legal definition of ecocide, which was formulated by the Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation in 2021.

A new report by France’s international development financing agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), highlights the role that ecocide law would play in “ensuring the planet’s habitability”.

The People’s Pact for the Future, a set of recommendations created through extensive consultations with global civil society to guide the United Nations in tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, has proposed that ecocide be criminalised as a standalone offence under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

On 1 July 2024, Italy’s Green and Left Alliance proposed a bill to criminalise "ecocide," based on the Independent Expert Panel’s 2021 definition. The bill must undergo parliamentary discussion, committee review, voting in both houses, and receive presidential approval to become law.

Two new ecocide bills have been introduced in Peru's parliament by members of the Perú Libre and Cambio Democrático parties, adding to a previous submission and signalling a concerted move towards amending the penal code to include ecocide, based on the Independent Expert Panel’s consensus definition formulated in 2021.

On 17 June, the governing board of the largest political party in Finland’s ruling coalition government, the National Coalition Party, officially expressed support for ecocide as an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), representing a global fellowship of 352 churches and 580 million Christians, has issued a powerful statement which calls on the world’s churches and governments to support ecocide legislation and emphasises the role of biodiversity in preserving human well-being and ensuring the planet's resilience to climate impacts.

At a press conference on 30th May, MPs from three of Canada’s federal political parties affirmed their support for making ecocide a crime at the International Criminal Court.

In a speech given at the "Promise of International Law in the Face of Ecological Crises" conference in Amsterdam, organised by the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk reaffirmed his support for bringing the crime of ecocide within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In the wide ranging speech, the High Commissioner called for environmental crimes to be considered on a par with the human impacts of other atrocities and for states to employ criminal law ’more expansively’ as a tool to align their environmental laws and policies with their human rights obligations.

On 15 May 2024, the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) voted on a total of six motions, from four political parties, that contain proposals to make ecocide prohibited under international law within the framework of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The vote in parliament was close - 153 MPs voting in line with the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recommendations (i.e. against the motions) and 150 voting in favour.

Congressman Américo Gonza, a member of the Perú Libre party and Chair of the Peruvian parliamentary Justice Committee, has tabled a bill proposing the amendment of Peru’s penal code to include the crime of ecocide.

The bill, which notes that the Independent Expert Panel’s consensus definition of ecocide is ‘widely accepted at the international level’, proposes a custodial sentence for the crime of between seven and twenty years.

On April 18, 2024, the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe dopted Resolution 2546 which contains recommendations aimed at addressing critical issues related to ocean health in the context of the climate crisis, including a call on member and non-member States of the Council of Europe to promote the codification of the term "ecocide" at national, regional and international levels.

In run-up to elections, Flemish and Walloon political parties have been surveyed on a host of issues. The survey, conducted by a coalition of Belgian environmental organisations, included a question about support for amending the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include a new crime of ecocide.

The European Council has formally adopted a new environmental crime directive, which includes provision to criminalise cases ‘comparable to ecocide’.

The city of Utrecht, represented by Alderman Linda Voortman, signed the Stop Ecocide NL Manifesto, which calls upon the Dutch government to support the recognition of ecocide as a crime at the international, European, and national levels.

The Joint Global Statement of Major Groups and Stakeholders (Joint Global Statement), presented at the Sixth United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-6), stated that working 'towards the universal recognition of ecocide as an international crime' would serve as a 'powerful deterrent' against the most severe environmental harms.