Ecocide, Sustainable Development and Critical Environmental Law Insights

Advocates of the criminalization of ecocide face a dilemma: how to address activities that bring socio-economic benefits and cause severe environmental damage. The solution has generally been seen in the integration of international environmental law (IEL) norms, such as balancing sustainability with development, into the definition of ecocide. This article challenges the uncritical adoption of IEL norms in ecocide debates and explores the socio-ecological implications of relying on those norms in future trials at the International Criminal Court. While this article does not offer a new definition of ecocide, by borrowing insights from critical environmental law and studies of law in the Anthropocene it proposes a new approach for engaging with the question of ecocide, namely, by embracing reflexivity and normativity in legal practice.