Hello, I am Julia, the new Policy & Communications Officer at ERCS. Since starting in November, I have been exploring what criminalising ecocide could mean for Scotland.
Creating a crime to fit the crisis
The campaign to make ecocide an international crime is gaining momentum. It seeks to punish the world’s worst polluters and deter environmental destruction with the threat of the International Criminal Court.
‘Ecocide is broadly understood to mean mass damage and destruction of ecosystems – severe harm to nature which is widespread or long-term.’
Stop Ecocide International
Could this also apply to Scotland’s polluters? In November 2023, Monica Lennon MSP took the first step by opening a public consultation on her proposed Member’s Bill to make ecocide a crime in Scots law.
As summarised by our Chief Officer Dr Shivali Fifield at the consultation launch, Scotland’s nature crisis makes it clear that more must be done on multiple fronts. To scope whether and how criminalising ecocide could be part of the solution, ERCS has commissioned two internationally recognised ecocide experts to consider the options for new legislation and their impacts.
Dr Rachel Killean and Professor Damien Short led discussions at our ecocide roundtable event in January, which brought together 44 specialists from our eNGO, legal, and academic networks to scrutinise issues such as legal definitions and barriers to practical implementation. We look forward to publishing their report in March.
You can read some of our early thoughts in ERCS’s consultation response on the proposed Ecocide (Prevention) (Scotland) Bill.
So, is ecocide the crime that could address Scotland’s nature crisis?
- Yes – we need robust criminal sanctions for polluters. The practicalities of a Scottish ecocide law need ironing out, but it could provide additional punishments and a powerful deterrent to polluters causing mass-scale environmental damage.
- No – most environmental damage in Scotland is caused by failure to enforce existing environmental laws. This lack of enforcement by regulators and barriers to access to justice will not be fixed by an ecocide law. You can listen to the lived experiences of our Environmental Justice Network speaking at our Summit.
Holding public bodies and polluters to account
The popularity of ecocide criminalisation represents a broader wish for justice.
At our Lunchtime 101 on ecocide, joined by guest speakers Monica Lennon MSP and Anna Maddrick from Stop Ecocide International, the question that attendees overwhelmingly wanted answered was ‘will criminalising ecocide make polluters pay?’.
Since the launch of our free legal advice service in 2021, ERCS has responded to over 250 enquiries from across Scotland. They have revealed systemic failures in the enforcement of environmental regulations, including on sewage pollution and land contamination, which need to be urgently fixed.
We must hold public bodies and polluters to account on these existing failures and that is why we need reform of legal expenses and a dedicated Scottish Environment Court.
A Scottish ecocide law is only one part of this jigsaw puzzle.
Julia Leino, Policy & Communications Officer, February 2024
