📅 31 October 2025 📍 Senate House, London & 💻 Online (Livestream available)
About the Conference
This one-day hybrid conference will convene scholars, activists, diplomats, and lawmakers from across the globe for a dialogue on the intersection of international law, human rights, and ecological justice.
The daytime programme will feature presentations by the authors of selected papers from the forthcoming Special Issue of the International Journal on Human Rights dedicated to Ecocide, Human Rights and Environmental Justice. A strong emphasis will be placed on voices from the global majority, ensuring that diverse perspectives are brought to the forefront of this critical debate.
In the evening, the focus will broaden beyond academia. Campaigners, activists, lawmakers, and representatives of states at the forefront of the ecocide campaign will share reflections and experiences on the path towards ecological justice.
The conference is proudly organised by UCLA Law’s The Promise Institute for Human Rights Europe and The Institute for Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London.
Registration
👉 Please note: registration for the daytime conference and the evening event is separate.
Conference Programme
Welcome
9.30 Registration and Coffee
10.00 Welcome. Introduction from Editors of Journal Special Issue
Keynote from Baroness Rosie Boycott
Panel 1: Corporations and Colonialism
10.30 – 12.00
Krishnee Appadoo - Analysing the relationship between ecocide and environmental justice through a human rights lens: a study of SIDS and Latin American countries
Felix Dube - Ecocide and Crimes Against the Environment: African Dimensions on the law of Ecocide
Jonathan Liljebad (online) - Intersections of Ecocide, Indigenous Struggle, & Pro-Democracy Conflict: Implications of Post-Coup Myanmar for Ecocide in International Criminal Law
Tameka Samuels-Jones - Unearthed: The Role of Multinational Corporations in Bauxite Mining and Ecocide in Jamaica
Chair – Olivia Lwabukuna, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Lunch
12.00 – 1.15
Panel 2: Applying the definition – mens rea, victims, reparations and sentencing
1.15 – 3.00
Gregory Gordon – Sentencing Ecocide
Hector Herrera – From environmental war crimes to ecocide: lessons from Colombia’s transitional Justice
Lisa Oldring – The archetypal ecocide: is environmental devastation in the Alberta oil sands an international crime?
Catherine Savard - What Mens Rea for Ecocide in the Rome Statute?
Chair – Xuchen Zhang, The Promise Institute for Human Rights
Coffee
3.00 – 3.20
Panel 3: Human Rights and Environmental Stewardship
3.20 – 4.50
Lovleen Bhullar - Reviving India’s River Goddesses: Ecocide, the Right to a Healthy Environment and Rights of Nature
Matthew Gillett – “Human, all too Human”: The Anthropocentricization of Ecocide
Daniel Adjin Odonkor – Beyond Environmental Harm: Redefining Ecocide to Address Global South Realities Through Ghana’s Illegal Mining Crisis
Darryl Robinson (online) – Humans Matter Too: ‘Ecocentric’ does not mean 'Misanthropic’
Chair – Farah Faizal (Amb.) Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Close
4.50 – 5.00
Drinks
5.00 – 6.00
Evening session
6.00 - 7.30
Samia Dumbuya, UK environmental justice advocate
Monica Lennon Member of the Scottish Parliament
H.E. Macenje Mazoka, Zambian High Commissioner
Jojo Mehta, Co-founder and CEO, Stop Ecocide International
Kaeden Watts, Indigenous rights advocate and policy expert from Aotearoa New Zealand
