Environment Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, this group of amendments is simple and coherent. Both the amendments address the proposed international offence of ecocide. Noble Lords will see that the amendments have cross-party and non-party support. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Boycott, for supporting them.

Amendment 293D sets out the definition of ecocide, which means,

“unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.

The treatment that the planet and many of its people have received is criminal, and it is time that the crime was acknowledged and prevented. We are killing the ecosystems on which we rely and gravely depleting the natural world, putting at risk the many wondrous and beautiful natural systems of which we have so little understanding.

In acknowledgement of that, for more than a decade lawyers have been working on a new international law to protect this fragile planet—a law of ecocide. It is proposed that it becomes part of the Rome statute, which contains the international crime of genocide. Many people will associate this campaign with the late, great barrister and campaigner Polly Higgins. The crime of ecocide has been a topic of debate since the Vietnam War when Agent Orange was used by the US Army to defoliate vast areas of jungle. Since then, incidents of irreversible destruction to ecosystems and the ocean have led to further and ongoing proposals for this crime to be adjudicated by the International Criminal Court.

I first encountered this proposal at a one-day seminar at the British Library in 2008. Work then was already well advanced but, in the decade since, it has advanced much further. The French have already written the crime into their climate law. The Belgians and Dutch are considering doing likewise and nearly a dozen national constitutions include a recognition of ecocide. Research by the European Law Institute seeks to draw up a model law for the EU. In May, the European Parliament encouraged the EU and its members,

“to pave the way within the International Criminal Court (ICC) towards new negotiations between the parties with a view to recognising ‘ecocide’ as an international crime”.

Three of the countries that already recognise this crime are signatories to the Rome statute. Therefore, if, as I suggest, the UK successfully proposed an ecocide amendment, a total of 130 countries would recognise it as a crime, 123 of which could then take a case to the ICC for adjudication. I note, however, that the US, China and India are not state parties. There has also been publicly recorded interest from Bangladesh, Canada, Finland, Luxembourg, the Maldives, Spain and Vanuatu.

Noble Lords will note that Amendment 293D arrived rather late to this Committee. That is because it uses a new, further-developed definition of the law of ecocide that has only just been released by a distinguished expert international panel of jurists. The definition in the amendment, however, differs from the international definition by excluding a reference to outer space. The Public Bill Office declared that that was out of scope of the Bill, and while there is an argument for outer space being part of our environment, I decided to leave that discussion to another day. I note for noble Lords’ interest that the maximum penalty of 30 years’ imprisonment reflects that which applies to genocide under UK law.

When—and I am sure that it is when—the crime is incorporated into the Rome statute, it will eventually make its way into UK law. Surely not even the current Government’s carelessness as regards international law would prevent that. But the world and our nature-depleted, plastic and pollution-choked islands cannot wait, which is why I put forward Amendment 293D.

It is worth noting that, astonishingly, the Bill as it currently stands makes no mention of ecosystems and, therefore, there can be no protection of ecosystems. Amendments contain at least five references to ecosystems, which shows that there is a desire across the House to introduce this, and introducing a crime of ecocide would be a comprehensive way in which to do that.

The lead amendment, Amendment 287, offers the international perspective and calls for the Government to commit to supporting the international Stop Ecocide campaign and within 12 months of the Act coming into force to present—alone or, I expect, with others—a proposal to amend the Rome statute.

I should love to think that the Government will embrace both these amendments but I am a realist. I am aware also that creating a whole new legal offence is something our legal eagles and those across the country are likely to want to chew over for some time. I am very much looking forward to the thoughts of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, on Amendment 293D, which I am sure will help inform future thinking on the UK offence. There is a definite opportunity for a stand-alone Private Member’s Bill here. So I am unlikely to pursue that amendment to Report but regard it as a start to the UK debate.

However, that is not the case with Amendment 287. As countries, campaign groups and lawyers across the globe line up behind the call to amend the Rome statute, the UK needs to be on board. As the chair of the COP 26 climate talks, how could we be anywhere else?

I am almost finished, but I have one final question for the Minister. Will he agree to meet with the ecocide campaign and have his officials look at the outputs from the Independent Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide? I thank other noble Lords who are taking part in this debate and those who have already offered their support. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

It is a great delight to support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in the amendment. I, like her, believe that ecocide will be introduced as a crime on an international basis and will join the Rome statute alongside the more familiar crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The point about ecocide is that it has to be wanton and deliberate. Here are just a few examples that might be able to have that label attached to them. In Jack Harries’s new powerful film “The Breakdown”, he shows us a closed-door meeting with Exxon executives in 1977. Their scientist James Black delivers a presentation called “The Greenhouse Effect” in which he warns that carbon dioxide from the world’s use of fossil fuels is warming the planet and will eventually endanger humanity. He is quoted as saying:

“Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”


Exxon in 1977 took his report seriously and over subsequent years invested millions upon millions of dollars into cutting-edge climate change science and hired the world’s top scientists and engineers to help to get to the bottom of the inconvenient truth. Therefore, weirdly, a lot of early science was done by the fossil fuel companies, in part to understand the impact of their work but in part to understand where their new drilling opportunities might be. It was, strangely, the first golden age of climate research.

However, quite quickly—by 1982—the research had piled up, and it did not look so good. The impact of fossil fuels on climate change was now unquestionable. In a leaked document addressed to “Exxon personnel only”, environmental affairs manager MB Glaser wrote:

“Mitigation of the ‘greenhouse effect’ would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion.”


He suggested that if this was not done—again, this was in 1982—there could be “potentially catastrophic events” such as the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, which would cause a sea level rise in the order of five metres.

The men in charge did not like what they were hearing—it was too big and too bothersome and it was going to threaten their livelihoods—so, in 1983, a year later, they decided to stop listening to the scientists and listen to their accountants instead. Overnight, the troublesome little hitch called climate change effectively ceased to exist in the annals of the coal industry. Overnight, Exxon cut the funding for climate research from $900,000 a year to $150,000 a year—out of a total research budget that stood then at $600 million—and those pessimistic sponges in lab coats stopped being invited to meetings. A culture of denial was born, lifted straight from the tobacco industry—the one that said, “Cigarettes won’t give you lung cancer, keep buying them”. In this case, the industry said, “No, climate change isn’t real, so fill up your tank”.

I know that it is not within our remit—and never will be within anybody’s remit, I think—to prosecute ExxonMobil, which, as Channel 4 revealed a couple of weeks ago, is still at it. It has been pressurising President Biden over his green economy and new deal, to the extent that a lot of the investment in new green jobs has been taken away. As the lobbyist on “Channel 4 News” said, “We’re really happy because he’s sticking to infrastructure and roads and highways as a way of creating new jobs”.

Coming back to our own climate disaster, after the death of young Ella Kissi-Debrah a couple of years ago, the law did find that her death had been made possible or enhanced by the fact that she was breathing bad air. The fact that the fossil fuel companies played a part in this starts to make two parts of the story come together.

As I say, the question of ecocide is a question of intent. The £90 million fine handed out to Southern Water last week is a great step; £90 million is a lot of money. Even so, the company’s profits that year were about £200 million. Its pollution has killed countless fish and destroyed habitats and wildlife, not to mention the sea creatures whose homes have been irreparably damaged by raw sewage. As the Guardian reported:

“Andrew Marshall, appearing at the sentencing hearing for the regulator, told Canterbury crown court that Southern Water, which is ultimately under the control of Greensands Holdings”—


a private company—

opened storm tanks to release raw sewage into coastal waters in north Kent and the Solent to increase its own financial benefits. The company also allowed storm tanks to be kept full and to turn septic, instead of putting millions of litres of raw sewage through the treatment process as required by law.”

This flagrant and wanton act was carried out with the full knowledge of the damage that could ensue. So, yes, £90 million is terrific from one point of view, but is it not also something more? Should not a crime that would send people to prison or really shame them, such as ecocide, be attached to Andrew Marshall, the boss of Southern Water? The threats to nature and wildlife that our current practices present are talked about a lot these days. Finding someone responsible is never easy; we have not even managed to hold anyone responsible for Grenfell yet. Yet here is a case where we are damaging and threatening our natural world every day.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, many countries in Europe are already debating whether to introduce an ecocide law into their home legislation. A number of countries already have their own ecocide laws. For instance, Article 358 of the Russian criminal code states:

“Massive destruction of the animal or plant kingdoms, contamination of the atmosphere or water resources, and also commission of other actions capable of causing an ecological catastrophe, shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of 12 to 20 years.”


Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia have also passed laws which mean that the country can send someone to prison for a wanton and knowing act of ecological disaster.

Frankly, it is uncertain how many people will die in the next few years because of climate change and nature depletion, or how many more millions of people will be forced to leave their homes, looking for sanctuary in the remaining kinder climates—but it will be a lot. It will dwarf previous acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. We must start to hold individuals accountable. Obviously, this law needs to be international —I urge the Government to work with others to make it so—but could we start by at least discussing it as a possible national offence, too? We cannot expect the world to adopt this if we do not apply it here. As we all know, on the eighth day of this long and wonderful environment debate, we have only one home; it is very precious and we need tougher laws to protect it.