Are the Amazon fires a crime against humanity?
This article by , Lecturer in Law, is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .
Fires in the Brazilian Amazon have during President Jair Bolsonaro鈥檚 first year in office and in July 2019 alone, an area of rainforest the was lost every day. The Amazon fires may seem beyond human control, but they鈥檙e not beyond human culpability.
Amazon fires 15-22 August 2019. satellite image taken by MODIS.: WikimediaBolsonaro ran for president promising to 鈥� into the Brazilian economy鈥�. Once elected, he slashed the Brazilian by 95% and on indigenous lands. Farmers cited their support for Bolsonaro鈥檚 approach as they for cattle grazing.
Bolsonaro鈥檚 vandalism will be most painful for the . But destruction of the world鈥檚 largest rainforest may and so cause worldwide. For that reason, Brazil鈥檚 former environment minister, Marina Silva, called the Amazon fires .
From a legal perspective, this might be a helpful way of prosecuting environmental destruction. Crimes against humanity are , like genocide and war crimes, which are considered to harm both the immediate victims and humanity as a whole. As such, all of humankind has an interest in their punishment and deterrence.
Historical precedent
Crimes against humanity were first classified as an international crime during the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II. Two German Generals, , were charged with war crimes for implementing scorched earth policies in Finland and Norway. No one was charged with crimes against humanity for causing the unprecedented environmental damage that scarred the post-war landscapes though.
Our understanding of the Earth鈥檚 ecology has matured since then, yet so has our capacity to pollute and destroy. It鈥檚 now clear that the consequences of environmental destruction don鈥檛 stop at national borders. All humanity is placed in jeopardy when burning rainforests flood the atmosphere with CO鈧� and exacerbate climate change.
Holding someone like Bolsonaro to account for this by charging him with crimes against humanity would be a world first. If successful, it could set a precedent which might stimulate more aggressive legal action against environmental crimes. But do the Amazon fires fit the criteria?
Prosecuting requires proof of widespread and systematic attacks against a civilian population. If a specific part of the global population is persecuted, this is an affront to the global conscience. In the same way, domestic crimes are an affront to the population of the state in which they occur.
Robert Jackson speaks at the Nuremberg trials in 1945.: Raymond D'Addario/WikipediaWhen prosecuting prominent Nazis in Nuremberg, the US chief prosecutor, Robert Jackson, that crimes against humanity are committed by individuals, not abstract entities. Only by holding individuals accountable for their actions can widespread atrocities be deterred in future.
The International Criminal Court鈥檚 Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to apply the approach first developed in Nuremberg to prosecute individuals for international crimes that result in significant environmental damage. Her recommendations don鈥檛 create new environmental crimes, such as , which would punish severe environmental damage as a crime in itself. They do signal, however, a growing appreciation of the role that environmental damage plays in causing harm and suffering to people.
The International Criminal Court was in 2014 to open an investigation into allegations of . In Cambodia, large corporations and investment firms prime agricultural land by the government, displacing up to Cambodians from 4m hectares of land. Prosecuting these actions as crimes against humanity would be a positive first step towards holding individuals like Bolsonaro accountable.
But given the global consequences of the Amazon fires, could environmental destruction of this nature be legally considered a crime against all humanity? Defining it as such would be unprecedented. The same charge could apply to many politicians and business people. that 飞丑辞鈥檝别 for decades should be chief among them.
Charging individuals for environmental crimes against humanity could be an effective deterrent. But whether the law will develop in time to prosecute people like Bolsonaro is, as yet, uncertain. Until the International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals for crimes against humanity based on their environmental damage, holding individuals criminally accountable for climate change remains unlikely.
Publication date: 17 September 2019