International Conference
Ecocide, Human Rights and Environmental Justice
The International Conference on Ecocide, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice, co-organised by UCLA Law’s The Promise Institute (Europe) and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, held in October 2025, brought together global scholars, activists, diplomats, and lawmakers to explore how international law and human rights can address ecological destruction. The event centered on the concept of ecocide, the criminalization of severe environmental harm, and highlighted perspectives from the global majority to foreground those most affected by environmental damage.
Speakers from around the globe convened in London to share perspectives and chart a course towards concrete action. Collectively, the conference underscored ecocide as both a legal innovation and a moral movement.
Many of the speakers at the conference are authors of the articles published in the Special Issue of the International Journal of Human Rights on Ecocide, Human Rights and Environmental Justice.
Together, conference and the special issue form part of a continuing effort to push the debate on ecocide forward, bringing diverse perspectives into conversation and advance the scholarship, legal thinking, and pathways that are needed to make meaningful progress toward true environmental justice.
Engaging with the report and the recordings of the conference and exploring the Special Issue will give you a valuable overview of the current discourse.
Available Presentations
Jonathan Liljebad - Intersections of Ecocide, Indigenous Struggle & Pro-Democracy Conflict: Implications of Post-Coup Myanmar for Ecocide in International Criminal Law
Gregory Gordon – Sentencing Ecocide
Daniel Adjin Odonkor – Beyond Environmental Harm: Redefining Ecocide to Address Global South Realities Through Ghana’s Illegal Mining Crisis
Catherine Savard - What Mens Rea for Ecocide in the Rome Statute?
Krishnee Appadoo - Analysing the relationship between ecocide and environmental justice through a human rights lens: a study of SIDS and Latin American countries
Tameka Samuels-Jones - Unearthed: The Role of Multinational Corporations in Bauxite Mining and Ecocide in Jamaica