Ecocide

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that we have to drive this forward. I know that an international group has recently defined ecocide, but I say again that the UK is a key player in all the multilateral forums focusing on tackling climate change. The significant amendment that would be required to establish a crime of ecocide is not only likely to distract from reform of the international court. It would also be extremely difficult to secure the agreement of all state parties and could occupy international negotiators for many years, which is why the UK is concentrating on what we can do domestically and to influence international parties.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

The new legal definition of ecocide builds on many aspects of established international criminal law and environmental law, as well as existing text in the Rome statute. Will the Government be a world leader on this? If so, how will they explain it to the oil and plastics industries?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

That is an interesting question. The UK’s priority, as I said, is to reform the court so that it functions more effectively and to take a leadership role in persuading international parties of the importance of the environment. On the oil and gas industries, the noble Lord will be aware of a number of initiatives, such as the 10-point plan, the White Paper and the North Sea transition deal, which seeks to show the oil and gas industries a pathway to decarbonising and to reskilling many of their workforce towards more environmentally friendly things, such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen technologies.