Corporate and State Liability for Environmental Destruction—Can Ecocide be Treated as an International Crime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37591/njel.v8i2.1905Keywords:
Ecocide, International Criminal Court, Environmental Harm, Framework Integration, Rome StatuteAbstract
As the topic of environmental degradation is gaining momentum, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is under the rise of pressure to integrate it into the legal framework by being against the severe ecological crimes. The recent effort to criminalize ecocide and make it a new crime stipulated in the Rome Statute shows a strong normative change. In order to fit this emerging concern there is a pressing need to review the relevance of application of other international law branches, including environmental law, human rights law, and humanitarian law to ICC proceedings. Despite the fact that Article 21 of the Rome Statute has permitted the external legal sources to be taken into account, their interpretation has remained, up to date, uneven and implemented sporadically. To this end, this paper proposes one additional interpretive model, namely, a framework integration, that can more flexibly and contextually, incorporate related legal norms. The paper considers the major objections that would include the issue of ICC being beyond its statutory powers and the threat of proliferation of legal norms. However, the suggested strategy represents a promising avenue, both in terms of handling the current environmental crimes, as well as in the context of setting the stage of acknowledging ecocide as an international crime in the future.
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