441-02521 (Environment)

WHEREAS:

1. Scientific assessments underline the urgent need to address the intersecting crises of climate change, biodiversity breakdown, pollution, and resource depletion;

2. The most severe, widespread, and long-term forms of environmental damage (ecocide), which contribute to these crises, are not recognized as a crime under existing international laws;

3. Domestic ecocide legislation has been proposed in Brazil, Scotland, Chile, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and other countries, and the European Union recently agreed to include crimes comparable to ecocide in its revised environmental crimes directive;

4. There are growing calls from civil society, faith groups, businesses and investors, including the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), for the criminalization of ecocide at an international level; and

5. Amending the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include ecocide as a crime, alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression, could provide a simple, effective deterrent for corporate and government decision-makers from causing intentional or negligent environmental destruction.

We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to publicly declare its support for an international crime of ecocide.