<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/17/eu-criminalises-environmental-damage-comparable-to-ecocide>
"The European Union has become the first international body to criminalise
wide-scale environmental damage “comparable to ecocide”.
Late on Thursday, lawmakers agreed an update to the bloc’s environmental crime
directive punishing the most serious cases of ecosystem destruction, including
habitat loss and illegal logging, with tougher penalties.
Marie Toussaint, a French lawyer and MEP heading EU efforts to criminalise
ecocide, said the decision “marks the end of impunity for environmental
criminals” and could usher in a new age of environmental litigation in Europe.
The environmental crime directive will be formally passed in the spring, and
member states will then have two years to put it into national law.
Although the agreed text does not itself include the word “ecocide”, its
preamble says it intends to criminalise “cases comparable to ecocide”. These
are actions that cause widespread, substantial and irreversible or long-lasting
damage to large or important ecosystems, habitats or the quality of air, soil
or water.
This closely follows a definition of ecocide developed by an international
panel of legal experts in 2021. The definition was mainly intended to be
adopted by the international criminal court through an amendment to the Rome
statute – the key goal of the Stop Ecocide Foundation – but is now increasingly
being used for national-level legislation. Scotland, for example, recently
began consulting on whether to introduce the UK’s first ecocide law.
The revised EU law specifies which kinds of environmental activities are
covered. These include water abstraction, ship recycling and pollution, the
introduction and spread of invasive alien species, and ozone destruction. But
it does not say anything about fishing, the export of toxic waste to developing
countries or carbon market fraud.
Having a permit to carry out listed activities will not automatically be an
excuse. Individuals and companies will have committed a crime if that
authorisation was obtained fraudulently or by corruption, extortion or
coercion, or if it breaches substantive legal requirements.
Lawmakers did not agree to extend these obligations to offences committed
outside EU borders on behalf of EU companies, but individual member states
would be able to choose to do this."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-domestic-violence-australia-malaria-rwanda-whales-dominica/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
