Meet the Speakers: Darryl Robinson

Humans Matter Too: “Ecocentric” Does not Mean “Misanthropic” 

Meet Darryl Robinson, Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law and member of Ecocide Law Advisory. 

At the conference on Ecocide, Human Rights and Environmental Justice, Darryl will unpack the widespread misuse of terms “anthropocentric” and “ecocentric” that has spread throughout the current ecocide literature, leading numerous scholars to believe that any consideration of human interests is “anthropocentric”.   

This is a demonstrable misunderstanding of terms.  Ecocentrism is concerned with all living things, including  humans.  Excluding humans from consideration is “misanthropic”, a position rejected by ecocentric scholars.  Ecocentrism does not ignore basic science; like all creatures, humans cannot survive without drawing from and impacting the environment.   

While numerous ecocide commentators reject any balancing between human and non-human interests, this ironically precludes the sophisticated assessment that an ecocentric position requires. 

Darryl Robinson is a Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law.  He was a clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and a Hauser Global Scholar at New York University School of Law.  As a Canadian diplomat (1997-2003), he was involved in the negotiation of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, earning a Minister’s Citation for his contributions; he later worked in the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (2004-06).  Since 2020, he has worked on the proposed new crime of ecocide.  He was part of The Promise Institute Working Group on the use of International Criminal Law to protect the environment, and is a member of the Ecocide Law Advisory, assisting national legislators on strengthening environmental criminal law. 

🎡 Join us in London or online!

📆 31 October 2025

👉 Register here: https://sas.sym-online.com/registrationforms/ecocide-conference-oct2025