This week, legal experts defined and put forward a new proposed category of international crime - ‘ecocide.’ If taken up by Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it would become the fifth category of offences to be prosecuted under the court, alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.
This landmark move is symbolic of a global trend in increased proposals and developments in environmental law. New solutions, approaches, and ideas to the planetary crisis are emerging, and governments are increasingly putting nature and front and center, including recognizing the rights of nature.
More and more businesses are also making ‘net-zero’ commitments and rethinking their activities, operating in a new regulatory landscape of increased environmental, social, and governance responsibilities.
We sat down with Andy Raine, Head of the International Law Unit at the Law Division of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to find out more about the rise in environmental laws, and what can be done to help make peace with nature.
Towards the end of 2020, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, declared that humanity is waging a war on nature. Why do we need to act, and must we act now?
Andy Raine (AR): The pandemic has shown that human health and planetary health are deeply interlinked. Sixty per cent of all infectious diseases are zoonotic – meaning they are transferred between animals and humans. Although global pandemics like COVID-19 dominate the headlines, zoonotic diseases, including malaria, Ebola and Lyme disease, kill over 2 million people every year, mostly in developing countries.
As the world’s population edges towards 8 billion, rampant development puts humans and animals in closer quarters, making it easier for diseases to pass between species. We are facing a triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and waste and the evidence is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Every year, the world loses 7 million hectares of forests, an area the size of Portugal. Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades.
UNEP research shows that despite a brief dip in carbon dioxide emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still heading for a potentially catastrophic 3.2°C temperature rise this century – far beyond the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C.
Humans have altered 75 per cent of the earth’s terrestrial surface and 66 per cent of marine areas. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration launched this month on World Environment Day provides an excellent opportunity to mobilize the global community to re-balance the relationship between people and nature.
UNEP’s research has also found that an increasing number of people are turning to courts to compel governments and businesses to their climate and environmental commitments. Why is this happening more and more?
AR: Indeed, in regards to climate change, UNEP found cases have surged in the last four years to 1,550 in 38 countries, double the number in 2017. Almost every month, there is a significant or landmark judgement. For example, in May 2021, the ruling of a Court in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its emissions by 45 per cent by 2030. In the same week, the Federal Court in Australia ruled that the Minister for the Environment owes a duty of care to safeguard Australian children from the impacts of climate change. Courts around the world are also increasingly hearing air pollution cases, pressuring governments to comply with legal limits.
One of the reasons for this is citizens increasingly becoming aware of and exercising their human rights to a clean environment. Judges are also more aware of the critical role they play in climate and environmental adjudication, with increased capacities in this space.
There seems to be a growing recognition that the right to a healthy environment is a human right. What is UNEP’s position on this issue?
AR: The right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is legally recognized in 155 countries. This is important, as a healthy environment is integral to the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, and sanitation. Without a healthy environment, we cannot fulfil our aspirations or even live at a level commensurate with minimum standards of human dignity. At the same time, protecting human rights helps to protect the environment.
Our Executive Director – alongside other UN leaders, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – has publicly called for member States to take the next step and adopt universal recognition of this right through a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council or the General Assembly. By raising its profile and giving it elevated status, universal recognition would help implement the right to a healthy environment worldwide.
How does UNEP work with member States and its partners to promote environmental law and justice?
AR: UNEP has a long-standing commitment and mandate to support member States to develop and implement the environmental rule of law. Our work in environmental law stretches back to and since the creation of UNEP in 1972 but has accelerated through successive ten-year programmes known as ‘Montevideo Programmes’ on environmental law. The first of the five began in 1982.
The current and fifth iteration of the programme was adopted in 2019 by the United Nations Environment Assembly. The Montevideo Environmental Law Programme V charts a decade of action and parentship in supporting countries to develop and implement environmental law, build-related capacities, and achieve the environmental dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other internationally agreed commitments.
Many countries are struggling to get their economies back on track following COVID-19. Can economic recovery go hand in hand with the pursuit of environmental goals?
AR: Recovery from COVID-19 and our planet’s repair must be two sides of the same coin. A green recovery from the pandemic offers a unique opportunity to put policies in place that address the planetary crisis while creating employment and reducing inequalities.
UNEP is encouraged to see that countries are channeling pandemic stimulus packages towards green investments. But more needs to be done.
‘Are We Building Back Better?’ – a landmark report by UNEP and partners found that only 18 per cent of announced recovery spending by leading economies can be considered ‘green.’ The report identifies five core green policy areas that can deliver the economic returns needed for strong recovery: clean energy, clean transport, green building upgrades and energy efficiency, natural capital, and clean research and development.
Pandemic stimulus packages will be key to accelerating action. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report found that a green recovery could cut 25 per cent off 2030 emissions to help us get back on track for a +2°C world.
For more information, contact Andy Raine, andrew.raine@un.org.
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