39 min
Defining ecocide as a legal tool to fight the climate crisis emPower4Climate
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- Non-Profit
In light of the climate crisis, legal action has become an important pathway to act, next to political action, practical action and civil disobedience. Courts in several countries have already taken groundbreaking decisions and forced governments to take more effective action.
However, legal experts have realised that the current legal definitions of public goods, goals and of criminal offences are not sufficient to act against the climate crisis. Therefore there is a growing movement which aims at defining ecocide as a separate criminal offence, which means the destruction of the ecological basis of life on earth.
We talk with the Swedish lawyer Pia Björstrand who is a founder of #lawyersforfuture and holds positions in several environmental and climate groups. Pia has been instrumental in bringing the discussion about ecocide to the public and to provide the legal basis for the definition. Which steps are necessary to define ecocide, will it be implemented on the national or international level and what would be the concrete impact on the fight against climate change?
In light of the climate crisis, legal action has become an important pathway to act, next to political action, practical action and civil disobedience. Courts in several countries have already taken groundbreaking decisions and forced governments to take more effective action.
However, legal experts have realised that the current legal definitions of public goods, goals and of criminal offences are not sufficient to act against the climate crisis. Therefore there is a growing movement which aims at defining ecocide as a separate criminal offence, which means the destruction of the ecological basis of life on earth.
We talk with the Swedish lawyer Pia Björstrand who is a founder of #lawyersforfuture and holds positions in several environmental and climate groups. Pia has been instrumental in bringing the discussion about ecocide to the public and to provide the legal basis for the definition. Which steps are necessary to define ecocide, will it be implemented on the national or international level and what would be the concrete impact on the fight against climate change?
39 min