Two official side events focusing on ecocide were held at the International Criminal Court’s 22nd Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute held at the UN in New York. Vanuatu & Samoa joined forces with the Stop Ecocide Foundation for an event on 11th Dec focusing on victims of ecocide while Estonia & Romania joined Ukraine on 12th Dec to highlight the need to address ecocide in armed conflict.

A Private Members Bill dubbed the 'Ecocide Bill', introduced by Baroness Rosie Boycott, aims to close an existing gap in UK criminal law which allows perpetrators of the most severe environmental harms to escape accountability. 

The EU has agreed to enshrine in law a new offence that aims to punish the most serious crimes against the environment. The final text emerged following several months of negotiation (“trilogues”) between the European Council, Commission and Parliament considering, inter alia, the establishment of a “qualified offence” aimed at preventing and punishing the gravest environmental harms including, as the accompanying recitals specify, “cases comparable to ecocide”. 

The Environment and Sustainable Development Committee of the Deputies Chamber of the Brazilian Congress approved Bill No 2933/2023 which aims to criminalize the most serious cases of illegal or wanton destruction of the environment, known as “ecocide”. This Bill has been authored and submitted by the PSOL party and supported by a coalition or organisations including Ecoe Brasil, Climate Counsel, Observatório do Clima and Stop Ecocide International.

Monica Lennon MSP lodged proposals for a Members’ Bill in the Scottish Parliament asking people to support an ecocide prevention law that could see big polluters jailed for between 10 and 20 years.  

The Nordic Council voted unanimously in a session in Oslo, Norway to adopt a recommendation calling for ‘the Nordic governments to participate in relevant international discussions to criminalise serious crimes against the natural environment in both wartime and peacetime.’

On August 17, a new law,  Law 21.595 was published in Chile.  It modifies the Penal Code in terms of economic crimes and incorporates a new section on "Attacks against the environment", which includes several elements of the legal definition of ecocide formulated by the Independent Expert  Panel, convened by Stop Ecocide Foundation in 2021. 

Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (Greens and Left Alliance), supported by Stop Ecocidio Italia and Stop Ecocide International, has submitted a bill aimed at preventing and criminalising ecocide to the Italian Parliament.    

The proposed bill, which is directly based on the wording of the legal definition of ecocide formulated by the Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation in 2021, has been formally submitted to parliament, with debate and votes due to take place in the coming months. 

Deputy Karina Marlen Barrón Perales (PRI) proposed adding a new article to Mexico's Federal Penal Code punishing anyone who perpetrates "any unlawful or wanton act committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment”.

The Catalan Parliament has initiated a procedure to bring before the National Congress of Deputies a bill to include the crime of ecocide in the Spanish Penal Code. From here, the proposal will continue its progress. There will be several months of hearings in which amendments can be introduced to the text, after which a final vote will take place at the Catalan Parliament.

Member of Parliament Lammert van Raan of Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals), officially launched a law proposal to criminalise ecocide in the Netherlands.

The proposal is currently subject to four weeks of public consultation prior to being submitted for advisory opinion to the Council of State. For the bill to become law, it will then need to be approved by Parliament.

The Belgian Council of Ministers approved the second reading of a bill outlining proposed reforms to the nation’s penal code. Among the new crimes listed for inclusion is Ecocide. Pending approval by Parliament later this year, the development sees Belgium set to become the twelfth country to add the crime to its statute books.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has called on parliaments of its participating States to enshrine the concept of ecocide in national and international law.

The Brazilian political party PSOL (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade) submitted a new Ecocide Bill to the Brazilian Congress. The proposed ecocide law seeks to criminalise “performing illegal or wanton acts with the knowledge that they generate a substantial probability of serious and widespread or long-term damage to the environment.”

At a UN Security Council open debate on the effects of climate change on peace and security, the Austrian Ambassador suggested that ‘the international community should consider making widespread long-term damage to the environment a crime under international law — referred to as “ecocide”. ‘

On 9 May 2023, the Spanish government officially answered to a written question submitted by Inés Sabanés Nadal, MP for Más País Verdes Equo, on whether the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge intended to support the proposal to recognise ecocide and autonomous crimes against the environment in the framework of the European Council.

Via announcement at a monthly plenary session, the European Parliament officially declared its support of the inclusion of ecocide-level crimes into the European Union’s revised Directive on protection of the environment through criminal law. 

Following the direction of travel established in the 4 previous consultative committees, the last and most important of these in the context of this Directive, the legal affairs (JURI) committee, unanimously voted to include the most serious environmental crimes - widely known as “ecocide” - in its proposed text for the Directive which will be presented in the EU Parliament on 17th April.

Governments of Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, Niue, and the Solomon Islands collectively call to phase out fossil fuels, support a rapid and just Pacific transition to renewable energy, and strengthen related legal obligations - including to “prevent Ecocide.”

United for Justice state-hosted conference in Lviv discusses ecocide law in high-level panel ”Prosecuting Environmental War Crimes” featuring Environment Minister, following severe environmental damage suffered in Ukraine as a result of Russian invasion.