The International Criminal Court (ICC) celebrated 20 years since it opened its doors in July 2002. A one-day conference was held in The Hague to mark the occasion, and the last session of the day, focusing on the future of the court, prominently featured discussion of ecocide as a possible fifth Rome Statute crime.

Walk for Earth UK: fundraising for Stop Ecocide International. Zoe Bicat and her mule Falco set off from their hometown of Oxford on the 8th of June and over the next few months, they will be walking to Loch Lomond in Scotland.

Following a historic unanimous Legal Affairs Committee vote, the European Parliament has announced its support for the inclusion of “ecocide”-level crimes in the EU’s revised environmental crime directive.

A Vatican statement has repudiated the “doctrine of discovery” - a theory that served to justify seizure of indigenous lands by colonizing powers from the 15th century onwards. The “doctrine”, based on papal bulls of the time, was treated by political powers as a fundamental part of the conceptual structure of colonialism for hundreds of years, even making its way into the legal systems of several countries.

Prominent members of the international legal community, politicians, academics, businesses and NGOs have responded to a public consultation held by the office of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, calling for a new crime of ecocide to be introduced into the Rome Statute.

A statement from the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe calls for support for ecocide law as a new and strengthened form of accountability.

The Spanish Parliament has just taken the final step to approve the law that recognises the Mar Menor and its basin as having rights , among them the right to exist and the right to recover its natural balance. The law was approved in the Senate by an overwhelming majority.

On the 29th March, history was written on both sides of the Atlantic. In Brussels, the European Parliament unanimously proposed including “ ecocide ” into EU law while in New York, a UN resolution called for a legal Advisory Opinion on the obligations of states with respect to climate change.

On 15th April, the world premiere of the Ecocide Law Choir Suite took place at the Jyväskylä University in Finland to an audience of over 300 people. The concert comprised a suite of twelve songs by composers from USA, Great Britain, Scotland, Sweden, Sápmi (Sameland), Finland, Canada, Brazil and Denmark, all of whom have donated their contributions to the Choirs for Ecocide Law project .

On 9 May, 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.

In an open letter published by Aktuell Hallbarhet , and timed to coincide with the European Parliament voting through an updated environmental crime directive , six CEOs, including Jenny Rundbladh of pensions giant SPP , called for the establishment of an international crime of ecocide under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

As part of the Global Climate Strike, FFFNYC made the recognition of ecocide as an international crime one of their 4 key demands .

President Nikenike Vurobaravu of Vanuatu has called for states to support including a crime of ecocide in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), telling the UN General Assembly “acting with knowledge of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment can no longer be tolerated”.

Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, re-affirmed the UK Labour Party’s support for a new international law of ecocide in his speech to the Labour Party Conference on 27 September.

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.

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

Ecocide law has been acknowledged as a key driver for business action towards net zero in a high level report delivered at the United Nations during UN General Assembly high-level week in New York.

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.”

The breach of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine has displaced the Dnipro River, killed an unknown number of people and animals, and left many Ukrainians homeless. The immediate human consequences of the dam’s destruction have already been devastating and its ecological impacts, though still being assessed, have been repeatedly referred to as “ecocide” ¹ .

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 .

On April 18, 2024, the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe adopted 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.

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.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has released a report providing an overview of the global state of ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’ in 2023. Referencing that only a handful of states have criminalised ecocide to date, the Secretary-General highlights the “need to establish a crime of ecocide at the international level” (para 45).

A growing number of businesses are seeing the potential benefits of the legal guardrail that an international ecocide law will afford and are joining calls to criminalise those acts which threaten the most serious environmental damage.

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last September, the Vice President of the Republic of Panama, José Gabriel Carrizo , argued that "the time has come for the world to have an international body to hold accountable all those who cause damage to the planet".

The Stop Ecocide Foundation EU Crime Directive Position Paper , submitted to EU agencies, has just been vindicated by the vote of the EU’s environment (ENVI) committee on its proposals vis-a-vis the revision of the EU Directive . The committee has proposed inclusion of a standalone article in the Directive setting out an offence of ecocide to cover “severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment”.

On World Ocean Day 2023, the celebrated oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle joined other world leaders, such as Pope Frances and Jane Goodall , in support of the recognition of “ecocide” as an international crime, as advocated by global NGO Stop Ecocide International .

Once every five years, representatives from Green Parties, Indigenous communities, civil society, academia, charities and NGOs from all over the world come together at the Global Greens Congress to take stock of the current state of the world and establish key policy priorities for the coming years. Among this year’s selected strategies for endorsement (all of which can be read in the Korea Declaration ) was the growing global initiative to establish an international crime of ecocide.

At a UN Security Council open debate on the effects of climate change on peace and security, Austrian Ambassador Alexander Marschik raised the issue of widespread and longterm damage to the environment. He suggested that “the international community should consider making [such damage] a crime under international law — referred to as “ecocide”.

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.

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.

On Thursday 20th July, 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 .

As part of the first major revision of its criminal code in over a century the Belgian government has proposed the inclusion of a crime of ecocide into domestic law, a move championed by the Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, Zakia Khattabi.

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.

In its statement to COP27 , the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), an investor-led organisation with ‘assets under management’ of $70 trillion, has, for the second year running, called on governments to criminalise ecocide.

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.

In a letter sent to the Argentinean Association of Professors of Criminal Law (AAPDDP) and disseminated in the media , Pope Francis makes an express reference to the need to incorporate "ecocide" as a fifth category of crimes against peace, i.e. to criminalise, at the international level, those conducts that involve the loss, damage or destruction of flora and fauna.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Republic of Azerbaijan has passed legislation to amend its national criminal code with a new crime of ecocide.

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.

In a speech given on 27 May at the "Promise of International Law in the Face of Ecological Crises" conference in Amsterdam, organised by the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s Deputy Prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, made a wide-ranging case for updating and adapting the existing international criminal law framework, including Rome Statute, to better protect the environment. Expanding on her theme of the Rome Statute being "a reflection of the legal imagination" of the time in which it was created, Khan remarked, "I wonder, if the Rome Statute was being drafted today, what would it look like? Would it include ecocide as a separate international crime?"

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.

A bill to criminalise ecocide has been lodged in the Scottish Parliament Introduced by Monica Lennon MSP and requiring the endorsement of at least 18 MSPs to proceed, the bill aims to prevent and criminalise the most severe forms of environmental harm. If passed, Scotland would become the first country in the UK to establish a domestic crime of ecocide and emerge as a global leader in the rapidly growing field of ecocide law.

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 November 27th, the Justice and Human Rights Commission of the Peruvian Congress approved a motion to criminalise ecocide, incorporating key elements of the 2021 IEP consensus legal definition. This significant step toward adding ecocide to the Penal Code now awaits plenary approval by Congress and presidential promulgation to become law.

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.

On November 15-16, 2024, the General Assembly of the United Nations Association of Germany (UNA-Germany, DGVN)—the association’s highest decision-making body—adopted a motion supporting the recognition of ecocide as an international crime at the International Criminal Court.

The Taskforce on Nature Markets, an initiative of Geneva-based non-profit Nature Finance working across public policy and the finance world to “align global finance with climate resilient, nature positive and equitable outcomes”, has issued its in-depth report Making Nature Markets Work. The report directly recommends establishing an criminal offence of ecocide in order to deter, prevent and hold accountable those engaging in illegal nature markets.

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.

On Wednesday, February 12, the Ecocide Law Advisory(ELA) was launched, a joint initiative between the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe and Climate Counsel to provide expert legal advice, training, and support on the drafting and implementation of ecocide laws.

The German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) has included a commitment in its 2025 Election Programme(p.55) to the consistent implementation of the recently revised EU Environmental Crime Directive(ECD) in Germany, as well as to the prevention of the most severe environmental crimes (ecocide) through an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

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.

Turkiye’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has supported a citizen-led petition to criminalise ecocide nationally. The petition was presented to parliament on 28 November 2023, after accumulating close to 29,000 wet signatures.

In his opening speech of the 54th Session of the Human Rights Council , Volker Türk , United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed enthusiasm for inclusion of the international crime of “ecocide” in the Rome Statute of the UN-backed International Criminal Court as a potential measure to ensure accountability for environmental damage, saying: "An international crime of ecocide has been proposed for inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by a number of States and civil society groups. I welcome consideration of this and other measures to expand accountability for environmental damage, both at the national and international level.”

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.

A new report, ‘ The Environmental Compact for Ukraine ’, has been published by the country’s High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War . The report highlights the presence of the crime of “ecocide” in Ukraine’s penal code (Article 441), notes the recent increase in the incorporation of the crime into domestic legislation across the globe and makes special reference to the Independent Expert Panel’s 2021 definition of ecocide .

Pope Francis has published “ Laudate Deum ”, an Apostolic Exhortation which is calling on governments to take responsibility on climate change and environmental damage . Following up from his 2015 “Laudato Sì”, Pope Francis highlights the inarguable human origins for the global climate emergency, and advocates for more international co-operation to control environmental damage. Pope Francis was also the first Head of State, in 2019, to publicly support the inclusion of ecocide as a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Belgium’s Federal Parliament has today voted in favour of a new penal code for the country, which, for the first time in Europe, includes recognition of the crime of ecocide at both the national and international levels. Nationally, the new crime of ecocide, aimed at preventing and punishing the most severe cases of environmentaldegradation, such as extensive oil spills, will apply to individuals in the highest positions of decision-making power and to corporations.

The European Parliament has today voted through a new environmental crime directive , which includes provision to criminalise cases ‘comparable to ecocide’. The European Parliament, along with the Parliament’s rapporteur on the directive, Netherlands MEP Antonius Manders , have been at the centre of efforts to secure new EU legislation aimed at preventing and punishing the most severe environmental harms since it announced its support for the inclusion of “ecocide” in the new directive in March 2023. To complete its legislative journey, the new directive will be subject to a vote by the European Council, scheduled to take place March 2024.

Launched at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi , the Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth charter, has been drafted by leading Islamic eco-theologians and practitioners from around the world. The charter creates a comprehensive Islamic framework on ecological and moral responsibility, urging collective action for the protection of our planet and states: “The enormity of the crime of ecocide – the extirpation of entire ecosystems, communities of species, including our own – can best be appreciated by considering the horrors of genocide – the extirpation of ethnicities and cultures. […] This kind of corruption in the Earth has yet to be recognised, litigated, and penalised in national and international legislation.”

On April 1st, 2025, MP Margarita Stolbizer presented a comprehensive bill dedicated to environmental crimes, which includes a Chapter on the crime of ecocide, using the definition developed by the Independent Expert Panel convened in 2021 by the Stop Ecocide Foundation.

On 11 April 2025, draft legislation aimed at creating a general offence for causing serious environmental damage was tabled in the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region by MP Zakia Khattabi , former Federal Minister of the Environment and member of the French-speaking Ecolo Party.

In a historic move, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the deliberative body of Europe’s foremost human rights organisation, has adopted a resolution endorsing the Draft Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law . If adopted and ratified by member states, the Convention would become the first legally binding international treaty to criminalise severe and large-scale environmental destruction — “conduct that many term ecocide.”

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) — Africa’s largest trade union federation, representing over six million workers — has publicly called for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This clear position aligns the NLC with growing global momentum to criminalise the most serious environmental harms — momentum now driven in part by African leadership. In September 2024, Vanuatu, Samoa, and Fiji formally submitted a proposal to amend the Rome Statute to include ecocide; the Democratic Republic of Congo subsequently became the first African nation to support the amendment.

A new legal opinion by Dr Stephan Sina, commissioned by Stop Ecocide Deutschland , sets out how Germany could incorporate the EU’s revised Environmental Crime Directive into national law — focusing on serious environmental harm comparable to ecocide.

The Council of Europe has adopted a landmark treaty which criminalises a wide range of environmental offences and enables states to prosecute intentional conduct resulting in environmental disasters 'tantamount to ecocide'.

The Justice and Human Rights Commission of the Congress of Peru has published a unified bill to criminalise ecocide, consolidating three earlier proposals into a single legislative instrument.