🌍 Understanding the Elements of Ecocide Law: A Seven-Part Series 🌍

Part 7: Liability of Legal Entities, Corporate Workers and Public Servants 

This series breaks down the seven key elements of adopted and proposed ecocide legislation, why they matter and how they have changed in comparison to the international proposal.  

Xuchen Zhang and Kate Mackintosh conducted an extensive comparison of existing and proposed laws that you can read here [https://globaljustice.queenslaw.ca/news/converging-standards-ecocide-laws-proposals-in-comparative-perspective]. In this series, we present their findings in bite-sized pieces, examining each element in detail to highlight its significance. 

Some new ecocide laws create liability for companies as well as individuals. These include those in the EU, Belgium and France. 

This means that the legal entity as a whole, as opposed to natural persons within it, can be held accountable for environmental harm. This is important at the national level, where individuals might hide behind the “veil” of the corporate structure to avoid liability. Corporate criminal responsibility is a stronger deterrent than civil penalties or regulatory fines, and may incentivize companies to invest in cleaner technologies and more sustainable business practices.  

Some of the new and proposed laws also detail the criminal responsibility of individuals within corporations, such as board members and directors, and some explicitly provide for the responsibility of public servants or officials. Such explicit grounds create clear guidelines, and make it easier to hold decision-makers responsible for abuses of power.