Guest blog: Ecocide: The need for a new international law to criminalise the destruction of the environment.
Harry Wright is a lawyer, Deputy Co-Chair of the United Nations Association Westminster Young Professionals and co-founder of the environmental initiative The Conservation Project. Harry is also a passionate conservationist and humanitarian. In 2015, our planet witnessed one of the worst environmental crimes in history, the burning and incineration of the Indonesian rainforest perpetrated allegedly by palm oil companies. It led to the desecration of millions of acres of pristine tropical forest, over 500,000 people (including children) becoming hospitalised with respiratory problems, the premature deaths of over 100,000 people and the incineration of hundreds of critically endangered orangutans. [1] It was perhaps an Ecocide, or a genocide of an entire ecosystem. Today, the criminal destruction to our natural world continues and although companies and individuals can be held responsible for a variety of environmental harms, many incidents do not result in compensation or pr...