Modern Proposals for Regulating Ecocide. Pragmatic, ideological or diplomatic.

Abstract

This article argues that the current debate on ecocide law is gridlocked due to an overlooked incongruency within the 2021 Independent Expert Panel’s ecocide proposal. To reinvigorate the discussion, the Panel’s proposal is compared with earlier proposals by Polly Higgins and Richard Falk. Analysis of the challenges, objectives, and legal solutions in each proposal reveals a respectively ideological, diplomatic or pragmatic approach. Incongruencies are found in Higgins’ and the Panel’s proposals, while Falk’s proposal shows consistency. The incongruence between the challenges, objectives and legal solutions arguably has its roots in fundamental methodological discrepancies between ideal and non-ideal theory. For a juridically viable solution a congruent non-ideal approach should be adopted, resulting in a multitude of laws and regulations addressing various objectives that are often incompatible in one singular article to effectively tackle environmental challenges.