Today, anthropic activity deeply affects all ecosystems, thrusting the planet into a new geological period called the “Anthropocene” (covered in greater depth in Topic 2). As a result, the relationship between living species increasingly depends on the way in which the environments they’ve evolved in have been anthropised. Multiple expert reports unanimously point to those responsible for it; they are very explicit about the ongoing disasters, interdependence between species, which no longer needs to be proven, nor does the fact that we all belong to a large planetary family (see Topic 4). All of this implies that we humans are “fully aware of the consequences of our actions”.

However, in 2020, the European Union warned of “the failure of environmental law” to sufficiently protect Nature. The report is very clear: law and justice in its current form cannot prevent the mass destruction of ecosystems. Corine Pelluchon stresses the importance of the notion of justice. Justice is a higher moral entity which refers to our ideals, our expression of values, what we think is fair, and our morals. While the law serves as a useful tool to limit the actions of humans, it is the whole set of rules that keeps our societies in check. This goes back to the thought process, addressed in Topic 6 p.26, on who the benefi ciaries of our morals should be. Up until now, our approach to justice has been anthropocentric, only taking humans into account. But this stance eclipses a pretty outrageous reality: human rights are fiercely interdependent with the Earth system’s right to exist and the right all of its inhabitants to exist. It is time to make things right: We can’t keep guaranteeing basic rights to humans (food, housing, water, health...) when their very living environment is being threatened.

Justice could be dealt with in a much better way by taking on a different stance. For example, a zoocentric one to expand the circle to the whole animal kingdom. Or a biocentric (or ecocentric) stance, to expand it to the entirety of the Earth system, thus including the inescapable interdependence between the living and non-living. Some initiatives have already started to take root around the world, but their impact is still limited. Here are a few of them. At the forefront, we find South America, with Ecuador adapting its Constitution in 2008: “Nature... has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions...”. Bolivia followed suit in 2010. Native American nations adapted their tribal constitution (Ho-Chunk 2016, Ponca 2017). India, Bangladesh, Colombia and New Zealand granted glaciers, mountains, forests or rivers legal personhood... But it is Uganda, in particular, that in 2019 became the first country to legally recognise that “Nature has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution”.

With regard to the rights of non-human animals, Jean-Pierre Marguénaud points out that in most legal systems around the world, they are seen as res nullius (ownerless property), in other words, a thing belonging to nobody but is, however, acquirable by appropriation, much like goods. On the other hand, Jean-Pierre Marguénaud explains that this situation is changing. Animals, still viewed as goods, are starting to take up a particular space in civil codes because they are becoming increasingly recognised as sentient beings, able to feel emotions in the first person singular (France 2015, Europe an Union 2016, United Kingdom 2021, Belgium 2021, Spain 2022...). Non-human animals are therefore starting to be recognised as sentient beings, but they still don’t have legal personhood status for now. In the documentary, Peter Singer is off ended by this paradox. He quotes John Lock (17th century) who defines the term “person” as a being that has a consciousness of his existence as an independent entity with a past and a future. He therefore makes a distinction between the term “person” and “human”. For that matter, he points out that even corporations have a “moral person” status. And Jean-Pierre Marguénaud insists that “it is absolutely essential to give animals legal personhood status, otherwise they are legally dead”.

The notion of justice discussed by Corine Pelluchon makes perfect sense here: “Imagining a society, [...] talking about justice for animals, is revolutionising the way we think about cohabiting with other living beings. This would require us to truly acknowledge that we are not alone in the world and that we share this planet and its resources with other living beings... Their existence forces us to fundamentally change the foundations of our ethics and political organisations.” Furthermore, she broadened the debate to the rest of the living and the Earth system as a whole. Recognising living beings as a “legal person” would result in new relationships between living species but also with the environments in which they evolve.

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What exactly is ecocide?

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Around the world, people are calling for our laws to be adapted, especially around the notion of ecocide. Throughout the documentary, Jojo Metha clarifies what it means and its implications. Ecocide literally means “destroying the house”. This term was first used but not endorsed in Stockholm in 1972, during the famous United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. It discussed the mass and irreversible destruction of the ecosystem caused by Americans using agent orange during the Vietnam War. In its current definition, the crime of ecocide is described as “any unlawful or arbitrary act perpetrated in the knowledge that it is highly likely to cause serious, extensive or lasting damage to the environment”.

The crime of ecocide doesn’t yet exist as such in national legislations (or very marginally so) and is not internationally recognised. Nowadays, those responsible for behaviour which could result in ecocide are simply slapped with a fine which is already included in their expense budget. “Truly protecting ecosystems by changing attitudes” requires “the adoption of legislation on ecocide at international level”, ideally at International Criminal Court (ICC) level. For now, the ICC has only included environmental damage within the framework of war, and in such a rigid way that it is not applicable. This gap could easily be filled by the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) by recognising “the crime of Ecocide as a fifth crime alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. Most legal experts insist on the importance of linking this crime to the ICC’s Article 30 which targets someone who “is aware that it [the consequence] will occur in the ordinary course of events”

Interest in establishing criminal liability is twofold. Firstly, it is about providing a clearer framework for Around the world, people are calling for our laws to be adapted, especially around the notion of ecocide. Throughout the documentary, Jojo Metha clarifies what it means and its implications. Ecocide literally means “destroying the house”. This term was first used but not endorsed in Stockholm in 1972, during the famous United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. It discussed the mass and irreversible destruction of the ecosystem caused by Americans using agent orange during the Vietnam War. In its current definition, the crime of ecocide is described as “any unlawful or arbitrary act perpetrated in the knowledge that it is highly likely to cause serious, extensive or lasting damage to the environment”. The crime of ecocide doesn’t yet exist as such in national legislations (or very marginally so) and is not internationally recognised. Nowadays, those responsible for behaviour which could result in ecocide are simply slapped with a fine which is already included in their expense budget. “Truly protecting ecosystems by changing attitudes” requires “the adoption of legislation on ecocide at international level”, ideally at International Criminal Court (ICC) level. For now, the ICC has only included environmental damage within the framework of war, and in such a rigid way that it is not applicable. This gap could easily be filled by the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) by recognising “the crime of Ecocide as a fifth crime alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. Most legal experts insist on the importance of linking this crime to the ICC’s Article 30 which targets someone who “is aware that it [the consequence] will occur in the ordinary course of events” Interest in establishing criminal liability is twofold. Firstly, it is about providing a clearer framework for only be driven by greed. The very fact that an international recognition process is underway could be discouraging marking the importance of this documentary which represents a fictional first-time trial for a crime of ecocide. The aim of this international recognition is to universally protect the Earth system (which, in passing, is vital to the survival of the human race). We have lost count of examples of mass deforestation, oil spills, damage to the sea floor, land and water contamination, air pollution, all caused by mining, fracking, oil sands production, certain agricultural, industrial fishing or textile industry techniques (a list of some presumed cases of ecocide is available on the Stop Ecocide website).

To conclude, Matthieu Ricard and Jojo Mehta place ecocide on the same level as genocide. The ICC’s definition states: “genocide is characterised by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a... group... or deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part...”. For our two speakers, the very same definition applies, except for the fact that it’s not only one group that's targeted but all living things, including humanity...