Ecocide

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, the emotive term “ecocide” conjures up horrific images of serious and deliberate crimes against humanity, such as genocide. I understand that an application was made to the United Nations International Law Commission in 2010 that a crime of ecocide be added to the Rome statute, defined as

“the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been … severely diminished.”

Does my noble friend not agree that it is hard to consider ecocide as so defined as a crime at all, let alone one equivalent to such serious war crimes, if it does not even need a person or a—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid we need to move on. We will hear from the Minister.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My noble friend is right that ecocide was removed from the drafting process of the Rome statute and that that was significant in gaining agreement on the crimes eventually included in the ICC’s jurisdiction. A norm of customary international law is that no one may be convicted of an offence except on the basis of individual criminal responsibility. This is reflected in the crimes listed under the Rome statute. Any future agreed definition of the crime of ecocide would need to reflect a similar set of norms.

Lord Speaker: Powers

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is of course a member of the Procedure Committee so he will no doubt make his views heard when a discussion is had.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, that we should be able to show courtesy to each other at Question Time. More often than not this is the case, but can my noble friend the Leader enlighten the House about how often she or her Front-Bench colleagues have to intervene to assist the House at Question Time?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Since July 2018 we have had 76 sitting days with Oral Questions and the Front Bench has had to intervene only 13 times.