TheVoiceOfJoyce

www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/growing-number-of-countries-consider-making-ecocide-crime

The Mexican bill criminalizes any unlawful or wanton act committed with the knowledge that your actions will create severe and widespread long term damage to the environment. Who’s going to be ensnared in this Law? With Insurance Companies reassessing their risks and kids suing their States for damage to their health, this Law sets precedent for suing Individuals and Corporations.

The new Mexican bill looks to criminalise “any unlawful or wanton act committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment”. If passed, anyone found guilty of ecocide could be jailed for up to 15 years and fined as much as 1,500 pesos (£70) a day.

The Mexican bill uses 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 also being used for national-level legislation.

Only a few states around the world have criminalised ecocide, including Vietnam, Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine’s public prosecutor is already investigating a possible case of ecocide against Russia for breaching the Nova Kakhovka dam.

France became the first EU country to put ecocide into law in 2021, although the wording is not as strong as campaigners had hoped for. A test case involving carcinogenic chemicals is currently in the courts.