20TH SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF STATES PARTIES
6 December 2021
Name of the Event: Climate Crime at the International Criminal Court (Hosted by: Republic of Vanuatu)
Report by: Ana Luz Manzano, Junior Research Associate, PILPG-NL
Highlights:
2020 was the most dangerous year on record for environmental activists, with 277 lethal attacks.
In October 2021, as part of the campaign for the inclusion of the crime of ecocide in the Rome Statute, ThePlanetVs submitted a case to the ICC concerning the mass deforestation of the Amazonian forest.
Panelists called for action to present requests under Article 16 of the Rome Statute for climate crimes.
Speakers:
Lina Torres, Director of Projects and Strategy with Movilizatorio
Seema Joshi, Director of Campaigns with Global Witness
Alison Cole, Indigenous Law, Human Rights & Environment Consultant with Students for Climate Solutions
Maud Sarlieve, Legal Consultant with ThePlanetVs
Summary of the Event:
The first of two ASP side events on Climate Crime at the ICC hosted by Vanuatu was moderated by Alison Cole, an international crimes advocate with Students for Climate Solutions. She, along with the three other panelists, highlighted some of the ongoing global efforts to fight climate change through strategic litigation at international courts.
The first speaker, Lina Torres, shared details on the Guardians of the Forest Campaign by Movilizatorio. Movilizatorio, a citizen engagement and social innovation hub with offices in Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, works with collective leadership as an engine for social change with the use of technology tools. Their aim is to promote the agendas of underrepresented stakeholders within the democracies in the Latin American region. With an alliance of indigenous and local communities, ignited after the 2016 Paris Accords, the Guardians of the Forest Campaign strives for the mobilization of public opinion to understand the critical role of indigenous and local communities in the prevention and the fight against climate change.
Torres presented a series of challenges, as identified by the hub, that indigenous leaders and local communities from around the world share in their fight against climate change. First, the killing and persecution of environmental defenders. Second, the demand for the right of indigenous and local communities to be informed with regards to projects with an environmental impact. Third, the fight for land rights recognition. Fourth, the request for traditional knowledge to be part of climate change policies. Lastly, the right to seek direct access to climate funding.
The campaign focuses mainly on the prosecution of killings of environmental activists. In fact, there has been an increase in climate advocates deaths: from 2017-2020, 327 environmental leaders were murdered worldwide, with 69% of them being indigenous or local leaders. However, according to Torres, the convergence of illegal and state actors in the attacking of environmental leaders makes accountability especially difficult. Ultimately, indigenous and local communities “serve as human shields of their territories”. Torres concluded her intervention by reflecting on attacks of several activists, including Bertha Cáceres, who was murdered in Honduras, and Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, who was murdered in Brazil.
Next, Seema Joshi presented the case of the liability of private actors in environmental impacts. As the director of campaigns at Global Witness, she campaigns for the investigation and exposure of abuses of power that are driving the climate breakdown. She considered the accountability gap present in the environmental crisis and explained that, according to evidence, the climate crisis intensifies violence against those protecting our planet. In 2020, 227 lethal attacks were reported against environmental activists, making it the most dangerous year to record, all of them taking place in the Global South.
A disproportionate number of attacks are against indigenous people. Although these communities make up only 5% of the world’s population, a third of the attacks against environmental activists are against indigenous people. Global Witness calls for due diligence regulations for companies, especially for large brands of international mining. Joshi emphasised that the absence of precedents in climate crimes should not deter the use of litigation to fight for international environmental justice.
The next panelist, Maud Sarlieve, spoke about the case that ThePlanetVs presented to the ICC in October 2021 on the mass deforestation of the Amazonian forest conducted by Brazil’s president. Sarlieve recognized that this case may not be admissible, but noted it may bring to light the current limitations of the Rome Statute in targeting climate crimes. She proposed that the Rome Statute, as an anthropocentric treaty, is concerned with the impact that attacks have on civilian populations. Therefore, the mass deforestation of the largest tropical forest of the world should be analyzed in function of the impact it could have on the local and global population.
Moderator Alison Cole concluded by referring to the Ecocide Campaign. With the use of a creative interpretation of the Rome Statute and Article 15 submissions, an amendment to the Rome Statute could be an important move towards environmental justice.