Jojo Mehta | Stop Ecocide: Law & Nature Rights
What is ecocide and why is this campaign working to make it a criminal act?
In this episode of EcoResolution Interviews Christabel sits down with Jojo Mehta, co-founder of the phenomenal campaign: Stop Ecocide. Together they discuss our relationship with nature, how legal mechanisms can protect nature, the ongoing campaign to make ecocide a criminal act internationally, and the power of movement building, language, and laws to shape the way we relate to our own nature.
“In our supposedly ‘advanced culture’, what we use to draw the moral line is criminal law. So we use criminal law to say what’s acceptable and not acceptable. We don’t use civil law for that. Something that might incur a fine doesn’t have the same moral weight as something that’s established as a crime. So we accept that murder is a crime, it’s completely unacceptable. We realise that it still sometimes happens but it’s completely not the norm. You’re not allowed to do it. And no business can build their entire corporation around a practice that kills people. That’s no longer a legitimate business. And so you can see that as soon as you move something beneath that red line and you say “this is criminal”, you actually start to change the moral landscape.”
“She [Higgins] interviewed the head of a U.K. bank a few years ago and she asked him ‘Why is it that you continue to finance these incredibly destructive activities?’ and he just looked her straight in the face and said ‘It’s not a crime’.”
“Polly Higgins, the amazing U.K. barrister that I co-founded this campaign with, who is sadly no longer with us, she interviewed the head of a U.K. bank a few years ago and she asked him “Why is it that you continue to finance these incredibly destructive activities?” and he just looked her straight in the face and said “It’s not a crime” - which just shows you that if something’s made unlawful the funds that support it can no longer go in that direction, so it’s hugely powerful.”
In June 2021 the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation concluded its drafting work, establishing an ecocide definition. Read the definition, commentary and core text here.
Learn more about Nature Connection here, including overviews of Nature Rights and Ecocide Law.
Stop Ecocide International (SEI) was co-founded in 2017 by pioneering barrister Polly Higgins (1968-2019) and current Executive Director Jojo Mehta. The mission of Stop Ecocide is to support the establishment of ecocide as an international crime, in order to forbid and prevent further devastation to life on Earth. ECOCIDE is the mass damage or destruction of the natural living world and should be a crime at the International Criminal Court - alongside Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Support their work here.
