Criminalising Ecocide: Peace-Time Ecocide and State Responsibility

This paper examines the definition of ecocide, offers criticism on the definitions proposed and compares the proposed definition of the crime to the existing provision criminalizing war-time ecocide. It analyses the practicalities i.e., the incidence of liability and the incidence of reparations, if ecocide were to be considered as an international crime under the Rome Statute. The incidence of liability of peace-time ecocide will be evaluated under three circumstances: where private corporations carry out ecocidal acts in violation of domestic law, where private corporations carry out ecocidal acts under State sanction and where ecocidal acts are perpetrated by the State or any of its instrumentalities.