Prosecuting International Environmental Crimes - A Geneva Security Debate
International criminal law is the most under-used tool in the fight against environmental damage and climate harm. It has built a substantial practice for prosecuting atrocities against persons, but nothing comparable exists for the natural environment.
This is partly a matter of law: the framework is more developed in wartime than in peacetime, and incomplete even where it exists, which is why the movement to criminalise ecocide has gained such force. But it is also a matter of practice. No prosecutor, international or, until recently, national, has ever indicted anyone for an international environmental crime: not for want of law, but because the expertise needed to recognise environmental destruction as a crime, charge it in terms that withstand judicial scrutiny, and prove it in court has not been developed or shared.
Pending a new crime of ecocide, existing international criminal law can already reach serious environmental harm, in some circumstances, as a war crime or a crime against humanity. The new Manual on Prosecuting International Environmental Crimes, developed through three years of sustained work with Ukrainian prosecutors, investigators and other practitioners addressing environmental crimes arising from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, applies those lessons in a global context. Drafted by UCLA's Promise Institute for Human Rights and Climate Counsel, it shows what can already be done within the law as it stands, and builds practical foundations any future framework will require. It provides a concrete starting point for this debate on where the prosecution of environmental crime fits within the wider peace and security agenda.
Objectives
The event will bring together the diplomatic, environmental, and international legal communities in Geneva to discuss how the prosecution of environmental crime fits within the evolving peace and security agenda, and to consider the opportunities and obstacles to accountability for massive environmental harm. The event will also feature a presentation of the Manual, encouraging its use in practice.
Speakers
His Excellency Andriy Kostin, Ambassador of Ukraine to the Kingdom of the Netherlands; former Prosecutor General of Ukraine (2022–2024).
Kate Mackintosh, Executive Director of The Promise Institute for Human Rights (Europe), Author of the Manual on Prosecuting International Environmental Crimes, Member of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide.
Simone Haysom, Director of Environmental Crime and Head of ECO-SOLVE, Global Initiative against Transnational Crime.
Moderator
Anna Brach, Head of Human Security and Planetary Resilience at GCSP.