Ecocide raised at UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi

The fast-growing call to criminalize ecocide is now beginning to be heard in the halls of the United Nations. At the resumed session of the UN’s 5th Environment Assembly in Nairobi this month (“UNEA 5.2”), it surfaced in a number of ways.

Two key speeches recalled the first UN Environment conference of 1972 when Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme first used the word ecocide to refer to serious destruction of nature, and called for it to be addressed at the international level.  UNEA President, Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment Mr. Espen Barth Eide, in his opening remarks recalled Palme speaking “about the limits to what our environment can tolerate and about the perils of ecocide.”  

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