Is Ecocide the Next International Crime? | Ecocide Explained | Latest Update | Drishti IAS English

Added: 2026-05-03

[00:00:00]Is nature paying a heavy price of our conflicts? What is ecoside and why are there demands of including this as a separate serious offense under the Rome statute? Hello students, welcome to Dishias. My name is Saloni Nankul and in this session let us decode what ecoside is. What challenges does the environment have to face when we talk about such human conflicts like war and escalation and what do we have at the moment? what are the provisions, legal provisions that we have for ecoside. Okay, so let's see why this is in news. So there was a recent report that was published by Lebanon and it actually accused Israel for committing ecoside. So in 2022 2324 when there was an Israel invasion on southern Lebanon, Lebanon said that Israel committed ecoside which actually altered the physical and ecological landscape of Lebanon.

[00:00:57]Then Iran also accused Israel. Iran also said that Israel's bombings of fuel depots in Thran have led to black rain.

[00:01:06]So the burning of this fuel and burning of these fuel depots led to gaseous emissions. And when these gaseous emissions they actually mixed with uh the water vapors in the atmosphere, they caused something that was heavily polluting and dangerous and that was the black rain. So Israel again committed ecoside. This is what this is what Iran also said and time and again researchers have been using this term and especially in the context of Gaza's agricultural land Gaza's agricultural land deterioration. Again in that case also Israel was Israel was accused of committing ecoside. So ecoside becomes important for us. What is ecoside? Why is it important for us to stop ecoside?

[00:01:50]What are the legal provisions that we have and what is still the lacuna? Okay.

[00:01:56]So let's start with what is ecoside.

[00:02:00]Ecoside killing killing of the environment. killing of the environment.

[00:02:08]Meaning that when human actions, human actions cause large scale large scale long-term long-term damage to what? To the environment. Then it is termed as ecoside killing of the environment due to human actions. any long-term damage, large scale devastation that is happening in the environment because of human actions that will be categorized as an ecoside.

[00:02:44]And for the first time, this term was used by Arthur Arthur W.

[00:02:53]Galston Arthur W. Galston in 1970 when he was criticizing a chemical named Agent Orange.

[00:03:05]Agent Orange. So Agent Orange was actually a chemical that was used by the US to cause massive destruction in the forests of Vietnam. Burn the forest of Vietnam because at that time the Vietnamese fighters they were practicing guerilla warfare. So in order for them to uh you know make it visible or in order for basically avoiding these um these fighters to escape this was happening that the US carried out this massive burning of all the forests major forests in Vietnam by making use of this chemical that was agent orange and interestingly Arthur had actually helped in the making of this agent. It had helped in the development of this agent first but he later criticized it when he got to know about the negative consequences the massive impact environmental damage that was caused because of this chemical he later criticized it and gave the term gave the term ecoside.

[00:04:02]He gave the term ecoside. Do we know what is ecoside? Now it is important for us to understand what are the legal provisions that talk about ecoside. Are we really do we really have enough provisions enough laws that treat environmental damage as a serious crime?

[00:04:19]So that is exactly not the case. That does not mean that it is not being talked about in any of the laws in any of the provisions. Ecoside is being talked about. Environmental damage is being talked but explicitly it is not an international crime. So the first provision that we talk about is the Rome statute. The Rome statute, it has four serious offenses, four serious crimes.

[00:04:43]It has categorized everything into four serious crimes. One, genocide.

[00:04:50]Genocide is a serious crime. Then crime against crime against humanity is a serious crime. Then war crimes.

[00:05:07]War crimes are a serious crime. And then crimes of aggression.

[00:05:14]Aggression also a serious crime. So do we have ecoside explicitly mentioned as a serious crime? No. Ecoside is mentioned here in the war crime category.

[00:05:28]Ecoside is mentioned in the war crime category. Now you might wonder what is the issue even if it is mentioned implicitly if it's mentioned in the war crime category what is the issue why do we really want to have a separate category for ecoside so we'll discuss the need but first let's understand where is ecoside mentioned okay so in the Rome statute it is mentioned here in the war crimes category then then if we talk about the Geneva conventions Geneva convention this is talking about warfare and this also discourage bridges countries from uh impacting negatively impacting or harming the environment of any other country while they are carrying out their war activities. They should not be targeting the environment of any other country. This is mentioned in the Geneva Convention also. And then we have the environmental modification convention.

[00:06:20]Environmental Modification Convention which says that whenever any two countries or more countries they are at war, one country if it is technologically superior, it cannot modify the environment of the other country to cause damage to other country. For example, it cannot carry out artificial flooding or artificial rain or anything of that sort where it's trying to modify the environment of the other country because it's technologically superior. that will be considered to be a crime. So environment has been mentioned not explicitly that you're targeting only the environment of that country explicitly it has not been mentioned. We are saying that you cannot try to modify the environment modify the environment and modification of environment might not always mean a big destruction but modification of environment is not allowed. Then targeting the environment over here, it is discouraged in the Geneva Convention.

[00:07:13]And when we talk about Rome statute, when we talk about international crimes, it is not explicitly mentioned. It is mentioned as a part of the war crime.

[00:07:22]But there are limitations. There are limitations. So what is the need for recognizing ecoside as a separate international crime? So first and foremost if we talk about the Rome statute it has anthropocentric nature. Anthropocentric nature meaning placing humans humans at the center. So I told you this is a war crime. This is a war crime like it's a crime under the war crime category and it is going to be considered to be a crime only if only if humans humans were being targeted. Humans were being targeted.

[00:08:05]And if it was done during a war, number one, humans were being targeted. Meaning that while causing damage to the humans, while targeting the humans, if environmental damage also happens, in that case, we are going to consider it to be a damage to the environment. But what about times where environment is being intentionally damaged? Where we are not trying to target the humans, but only target the environment. So this is a gap. It is not mentioned over here. It is not mentioned in the provision. It is simply saying that when humans are being targeted in that case when environmental damage also happens, we are going to consider it to be an ecoside. Right? So it's an anthropocentric nature that we are treating only humans at the as the victim. Whereas the need of the R is because the nature of warfare is also changing. We need to treat environment environment also as a separate victim.

[00:08:59]As a separate victim. Okay. So the first need the first need is the anthropocentric limitation of the existing law. The second is the limited scope. Limited scope of this provision.

[00:09:14]Limited scope because I told you one humans have to be targeted and two it has to be during the times of war. But what about peace time when two countries they are not exactly in a war in a full-blown war if there's only escalation if there's only conflict or let's say there is nothing there's a peace situation it's a peace-like situation in that case if any damage is being caused by any other country for example one country's company if if it goes and starts it establishment in any other country and there it is causing damage to that country's environment will we not treat it as an environmental damage or will we not treat it as a crime time because it is it is silent about the times when peace is there. It is only saying the existing laws are only saying that war needs to be there.

[00:09:57]War needs to be there and humans need to be targeted. So humanentric focusing only on humans as the victim and then we are saying that only at times of war.

[00:10:05]What about the times when it is not exactly a war or it is a peace time?

[00:10:10]Okay.

[00:10:11]Lack of strong criminal liability.

[00:10:15]strong criminal liability meaning because it's not a separate international crime and right now also whatever we have whatever uh existence we have in these provisions here also the focus is not a lot on fixing the criminal accountability there are fines like not a lot of punishment not every time people are or offenders are going to go behind the bars there'll be fines that they have to pay and when we talk about big companies or we talk about developed nations country leaders fines is a very like fine is a very small amount that they can pay right So there's a uh lack of strong criminal liability. Then rising ecological damage in modern conflicts. This is the changing nature of today's warfare that many a times environment ecosystem they are also being targeted separately because the focus over here and even scientifically they are being targeted in a manner like talked about black rain and everything they are being targeted in the manner that physical damage also happens and at the same time ecological damage also happens because everybody understands the importance of nature in in a person's life in a country in a country's development also and that's why environment is also being targeted So these provisions they say uh they have implicitly mentioned about ecoside about se in separate areas. And when we talk about ICU has recognized ecoside it has explicitly recognized ecoside but we need to understand that is not a lawmaking body.

[00:11:45]It has recognized ecoside means that it is giving utmost importance to ecoside.

[00:11:50]It is understanding that ecoside exists.

[00:11:53]Ecoside is the reality right now and it needs to be dealt with care. So it has recognized IUCN has recognized but when we talked about uh Geneva convention or we talk about the Rome statute or we talk about this environmental modification there we are not explicitly mentioning ecoite to be a separate criminal offense. That's why there is a need because of these reasons there is a need that we develop this as an international crime and once we do that preventive and deterrent effect will be seen. If we fix a criminal liability if we fix a heavy punishment if we start putting people behind the bars it is going to put a deterren or it is going to have aent effect meaning that people will now fear country leaders will fear companies will fear before they cause any damage to the environment. Right now they take things very lightly. At times they take things very lightly because the enforcement that we have is very uh weak. The enforcement of these laws or the existence of laws also is not very explicit in nature. So many of times people take advantage of this thing and they know that they can simply give a fine and they can move ahead. But that should not be the case. Once this happens once it becomes an international crime in that case preventive and deterrent effects will also be seen.

[00:13:08]Right.

[00:13:10]But there are some challenges and those challenges are number one there's a difficulty in achieving global consensus. Difficulty in achieving global consensus. Now when we talk about environmental damage so developed nations and developing nations they are always they have different opinions.

[00:13:28]Developing nations are still developing.

[00:13:30]They are still uh you know they are still making use of or they are basically developing their infrastructure. They're developing everything. And in that case certain amount of environment damage is happening. Whereas the developed countries have already developed at the cost of the environment. So the developed nations now talk very heavy when it comes to environmental conservation, sustainable development and everything. But developing nations still need some um some kind of a flexibility that they should develop and at the same time they should also balance ecological conservation. So this is something a global consensus will have to be achieved. If we want to declare ecological damage or environmental damage or ecoite to be a separate international crime then in that case a global consensus needs to happen. Then jurisdictional limitations of international courts are also there.

[00:14:18]Let's say we make it an international crime. Okay. But in many cases we see that certain state parties they are not exact or certain countries they're not exactly state parties to that international criminal court and how will the prosecution take place. So this also is a serious challenge that there is jurisdictional limitation of the international courts and then weak enforcement due to geopolitical power dynamics.

[00:14:46]Now we make laws okay we make it a criminal offense we make serious laws but enforcement needs to happen who is going to enforce that there's no global police sort of a thing who's going to enforce everything countries are going to enforce it countries are going to enforce these laws about like on their own political will. So enforcement enforcement is going to depend on what?

[00:15:11]It is going to depend on the political will of countries and if the major players the strong players the developed nations if they do not show strong enforcement of laws then they are going to set a wrong precedent. In that case the other countries are also going to be demotivated when it comes to environment conservation because they know that the enforcement is very weak. They can easily break laws. Nothing is going to happen. So that's something that we'll have to see. A weak enforcement is going to damage the entire situation. So even if we make it to be a separate international crime because the need of the arts says so, we'll have to focus a lot on strong enforcement.

[00:15:52]Okay.

[00:15:54]So that was all for this video. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. Now let's look at a practice question for prelims.

[00:16:01]And before we do that, we have a studio GS Foundation live online course which is going to help you complete your UPSC prelims and main syllabus in 14 months through 1250 plus hours of classes, printed class notes and a live chat facility during the classes. You have three mediums that you can choose from Hindi, English and English. And the admissions are already open. You're getting all of this at 34,999 rupees and you can also use a coupon code to get an additional discount. The code is s a l o n i salony all in capital letters only. So any queries you have please call us at 8750187501 and you can also download the dishi learning app.

[00:16:49]Now let's move on to the practice question for today. With reference to ecoite, consider the following statements. One, it refers to large-scale destruction of the environment caused by human actions.

[00:17:01]Two, it is currently re recognized as an international crime under the Rome statute. Three, existing international laws mainly link environmental damage to to harm caused to human beings. Which of the statements given above is or are correct? A1 only, B1 and three only, B1 and 2 only or D1 2 and 3. Please attempt this question and provide your answers in the comment section. Thank you for watching.

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