Ecocide Question: Should the Crime of “Ecocide” Be Added to the Rome Statute?
Publisher: ICC Forum
Author(s): Rachel Killean, Christopher Lentz, Rosemary Mwanza, Daniel Adjin Odonkor, Stavros Evdokimos Pantazopoulos, and Darryl Robinson
Date: 2026
Topics: Climate Change, Governance
Countries: Ukraine
In September 2024, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa proposed amending the Rome Statute to add ecocide as a fifth international crime, later supported by the Democratic Republic of Congo. The proposed definition, covering unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge of a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term environmental damage, raises questions about its breadth, vagueness, gaps, and suitability for an ICC framework historically focused on anthropocentric harms. Key issues include whether non-unlawful but “wanton” acts should be criminalized, whether environmental harm should be weighed against social and economic benefits, what ecocide would add beyond existing Rome Statute provisions and the OTP’s 2025 environmental policy, whether the ICC has sufficient capacity and expertise, and whether corporate actors should face accountability. Recent climate and environmental law developments, including advisory opinions by the ICJ and Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe Convention on Environmental Crimes, further invite consideration of whether emerging norms support ecocide’s inclusion in the Rome Statute or whether environmental harms are better addressed through national law, civil liability, remediation duties, UNTOC, a crimes against humanity treaty, or other mechanisms.