In the last decade, the link between environmental degradation and business practices has become well-known and publicly acknowledged, pushing corporations to rethink their business strategies to include sustainability. But up until this year, such sustainable practices were the exclusive domain of businesses themselves: meaning CEOs had no incentive other than public opinion for changing their policies towards the environment. However, recent developments in national, regional and international legislation seek to reverse this trend, ensuring accountability for businesses when their practices cause environmental harm. For instance, the French National Assembly just passed a draft legislation addressing “the most serious cases of environmental damage at the national level”, or ‘ecocide:’ a certainly impactful word which, arguably for the first time, combines the act of killing (the Latin suffix caedo) to a non-‘human’ related word (eco, connected to the environment) – other criminal acts of killing, such as genocide or homicide, either refer to people (genos in Greek) or man (homo in Latin).
The French law is the result of recommendations made by the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, a committee created by the government in 2020 with the mandate of defining measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The law aims to punish the commission of the general crime of pollution or endangerment of the environment. The draft law will need to go both to the Assembly and the upper house Senate for a vote. If passed, the bill will represent one of the very first steps at the national level towards the recognition of ‘ecocide’ as a crime – and it will most likely boost efforts at the international and regional levels. This development comes at a time when similar movements have gained traction at the national, EU, and international level. Only last week, the German Constitutional Court has declared that national climate change law violates fundamental freedoms: after complaints were filed by young activists between 2018 and 2020, the Court has determined that the current law overburdens future generations by failing to provide enough details on cutting CO2 emissions. Germany will now have to revise the law by the end of 2022. At the European level, when discussing the enactment of a Human Rights Due Diligence Legislation, the European Parliament has recognised that, due to strict link between the environment and human rights, “consideration should be given to the inclusion of references to environmental protection.” Recent studies have in fact found a strict nexus between human rights violations (specifically modern slavery) and environmental destruction: in the Mangrove Forest of UNESCO heritage Sundarbans National Park, child labour is being used in the fish market; or, in the Amazon forest, modern slavery is an essential force behind deforestation. Indeed, if slavery were to be considered as a ‘country’, it would be the third largest for carbon emission in the world after, China and the US; meaning that, if we were able to reduce slavery, we could also tackle global warming.
At the international level, the International Criminal Court indirectly declared in 2015 that environmental degradation was neither a war crime, a crime against humanity, nor genocide (and, as such, falling outside the jurisdiction of the Court). Since then, several lawyers have come together and are advocating for the inclusion of ‘ecocide’ within the crimes of the International Criminal Court, effectively elevating environmental destruction “to the same level as genocidal crimes” and providing for the possibility to directly prosecute business representatives. Corporations are thus urged to re-consider their business strategies: transgression of upcoming legislation may result in million euros fines as well as up to 10 years in prison, for direct perpetrators and CEOs equally. As a result, businesses should comply with human rights due diligence and uphold true sustainability – or run the risk of facing prosecution.
With decades of experience, Global Rights Compliance works with companies, investors, and organisations to address the potential adverse human rights and environmental impacts resulting from business operations. We work side by side with our clients to help ensure they become leaders among their peers on these issues. Our services include legal advice, consultancy services on policies, procedures and training, global supply chain assessments and due diligence, and designing and implementation of grievance mechanisms. Whilst we know the law and what you need to do, we also know that real change comes through behavioural change.
As such we work innovatively, side by side with our clients in a very practical way to ensure they genuinely become a rights-based company that is also a better business. To learn more about our work, please click here. To make an enquiry please email bhr@globalrightscompliance.co.uk.