The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
April 23, 2019

Polly Higgins, Who Sought to Make Ecocide an International Crime, Dies Aged 50
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And Polly Higgins, a British barrister who spent years campaigning for
courts and governments to recognize ecocide as a major international
crime, died Sunday of cancer. She was 50 years old. Polly Higgins
drafted model laws defining the crime of ecocide and authored two books
on the subject. In this video, produced by De Smog UK and Real Media,
she proposed making ecocide a crime on par with genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity.

Polly Higgins: "We are legally advising on ecocide crime to become an
international crime at the International Criminal Court. Ecocide is the
extensive damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems. Existing law
does not go far enough in terms of stopping serious harm, ecological
harm and climactic harm. We're talking about criminal law here, so
you're looking at CEOs, directors, ministers, heads of state, who can be
held to account within an International Criminal Court."



.