Emmanuelle Josse

The concept of “planetary boundaries” forms the basis of the ecocide proposal put forward by the members of the Citizens’ Convention for Climate. Planetary boundaries are characteristic of a systemic approach to environmental issues, with the concept continuing to incite controversy among political and environmental thinkers and activists.

Debates on the classification of ecocide as a crime are taking place against the wider global backdrop of increased use of litigation to address environmental issues. Can the law be used to advance ambitious climate change goals? Second episode in our series.

“Ecocide”: this term, while not well known until just recently, has made a dramatic entrance into current discourse. Driven by members of the Citizens’ Convention for Climate, which submitted its recommendations to the French government in June 2020, the government just proposed establishing an “ecocide offense.”

Etymologically speaking, this word refers to the “crime” (from the Latin word occidere) committed against the “shared home” (from the Greek word oikos), that being our planet. It first appeared in 1970 when the biologist Arthur W. Galston used it to denounce the United States Army’s use of a particularly toxic defoliant known as Agent Orange, which sadly became a well-known weapon of war in South Vietnam. While the chemical dioxin that Agent Orange contained caused serious health problems among those who were exposed to it, the herbicide also destroyed half of the region’s mangroves and nearly 15% of the forests. Formed to reflect the word genocide, the term ecocide is powerfully evocative. And just like for genocide, Galston advocated to have what he considered to be intentional destruction of the environment recognized in international treaties.

Nearly five decade later, countries like Vietnam as well as Ukraine, Russia and Georgia have now included it in their criminal code, and France is preparing to do the same. We would like to present a four-episode series that examines the stakes connected with recognizing the offense of ecocide.

How has the concept of ecocide come to the fore in the public debate to the point where today it is about to enter into the French criminal code [episode 1]? It finds itself front and center in a worldwide movement advocating for legal consequences for ecological causes at local and global levels [episode 2]. It’s this same movement that established the framework of ecocide, defining it as breaching the “planet’s boundaries,” a concept that for several years now has seen a certain amount of success in political ecology [episode 3]. To bring the series to an end, we chose to speak with a major figure in ecological philosophy and green thinking, the philosopher Catherine Larrère, a specialist in environmental ethics [episode 4].