Ecocide in Scotland
At present, only 13 countries in the world currently recognize ecocide – mass damage and destruction of the natural environment – as a distinct crime under domestic law.
Following the introduction of a Member’s Bill by Monica Lennon (Scottish Labour MSP for Central Scotland), Scotland may soon be the first UK nation to criminalize ecocide under Scottish law.
Public consultation for Monica Lennon’s proposed ecocide bill was recently launched at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh on 8 November 2023.
Chaired by Mike Robinson (Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and Chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland), the launch was also attended by Jojo Mehta (Co-Founder and Executive Director of Stop Ecocide International) and Dr Shivali Fifield, Chief Officer of the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland.
Further information about the public consultation, which is open until 9 February 2024, can be found here.
As one of the few ecocide experts in the UK, Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa (Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations) was invited to attend this event. Prior to the event, she had the opportunity to meet Monica Lennon at the Scottish Parliament to discuss further collaboration on ecocide.
Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa has now been invited to contribute a guest blog on ecocide for Monica Lennon’s campaign website, as well as to work with her team on their efforts to introduce an ecocide law in Scotland.
Ecocide in Global Politics
Beyond Scotland, ecocide is the subject of a vibrant global campaign that is calling for a radical solution to the global ecological crisis and attendant demands for climate justice.
Spearheaded by Stop Ecocide International, this campaign is pushing for ecocide to be recognized as an international crime.
Since the end of the Second World War, the international community has only recognized four specific acts as international crimes: aggression, crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
A fifth international crime of ecocide will make it possible for the International Criminal Court – the global court responsible for prosecuting and punishing individuals who commit international crimes – to also prosecute and punish individuals and corporations for acts of ecocide.
Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Development Award
Supported by a Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Development Award, Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa is currently undertaking a research project on ecocide – “The Criminalization of Ecocide: A Novel
Response to the Climate Emergency” – that is aligned to UWE’s research beacon on Sustainability and Climate Change Resilience. The study draws upon her innovative research on the process of international criminalization – recently published as a ground-breaking research article in the esteemed journal International Theory – and represents the first systematic interdisciplinary study of ecocide’s ongoing criminalization in global politics.
She will present preliminary findings of her research later this month at an in-person research seminar at the University of Reading’s Department of Politics and International Relations, as well as at an online webinar for the Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University.
Earlier this year, her op-ed on ecocide and the bombing of the Nova Khakhovka dam in Ukraine featured in Open Democracy and her research was cited by The New European.
More recently, written evidence that she submitted to the European Affairs Committee’s inquiry on the “Implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for UK-EU relations” was published online.
As part of the research project’s impact plan, she is organizing a workshop on ecocide with interested national stakeholders, such as Carla Denyer (Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales) and Monica Lennon (MSP of Central Scotland) and Jojo Mehta (Co-founder and CEO of Stop Ecocide International) – to discuss how greater political action on ecocide can be coordinated across the UK.
She is also putting together a proposed workshop on “Ecocide in International Relations” for the European International Studies Association’s 11th Workshops in International Studies, which aims to foster greater dialogue between a small emerging group of International Relations ecocide with other ecocide scholars across the social sciences.
Find out more about Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa and follow her progress here