Ecocide: Even earth deserves justice
From the Bishnoi Hindus of Khejarli, who were slaughtered by the Maharaja of Jodhpur in 1720 for attempting to protect the forest that he felled to build himself a palace, to the seventeen-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg the call against the crime of ecocide is growing day by day.
Ecocide literally means “killing the environment” and the concept is that no one should go unpunished for destroying the natural world. Activists believe that the crime should fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which can currently prosecute only four crimes now and they are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
In 2010, Polly Higgins, a British barrister, defined ecocide as “extensive damage to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.”
Immanuel Macron, the president of France and Pope Francis has also called for ecocide to be recognized as a crime by the international community, and Greta Thunberg has backed the cause by donating €100,000 from personal prize winnings to the Stop Ecocide Foundation.
Humans are not the only inhabitants of our earth, they are just a single species who are supposed to live without disturbing others' life on earth. And it is a reminder that when forest burn and the ocean rise flora and fauna along with other humans are suffering around the world.
The slow violence of Agent Orange in Vietnam to the Endosulfan tragedy happening in the Kasargod district of Kerala is an evident example that ecocide can doom life on earth. The gruesome legacy of Agent Orange dates back to the Vietnam war when the U.S. sprayed more than 20 million gallons of various herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1971. Generation after generation the number of living martyrs is increasing in Vietnam.
Agent Orange is linked to serious health issues including cancers, severe psychological and neurological problems, and birth defects, both among the Vietnamese people and the men and women of the U.S. military.
Despite little coverage of the herbicide for decades, its deadly effects have impacted the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who interacted with the chemical. Those who lost their lives or faced grave physical and mental repercussions of Agent Orange include State Department officials, soldiers from countries like Australia and visitors who spent stints in the region due to war-time obligations. Additionally, more than 4 million Vietnamese citizens were subjected to Agent Orange exposure.
The aerial spraying of endosulfan over the cashew plantations in Kasaragod district in Kerala is one of the worst pesticide disasters to happen to a region and its people. It was started in 1978. This was done 3 times a year over an area covering 15 Gram Panchayaths in Kasaragod. The tragedy occurred for various reasons, starting with the recommendation to use such a chemical in a populated, water body-rich area like Kasaragod.
There were many warning signals about its impact from the beginning, including the mass deaths of bees, fishes, frogs, birds, and foxes and also congenital deformities in domestic animals like cows. Since 1979 there had been a local outcry from farmers and media concerning the health effects of pesticide spraying. The commonly noted unusual diseases were neurobehavioral disorders, congenital malformations in girls and abnormalities of the reproductive tract in males. Another report showed an increased rate of cancers and gynaecological abnormalities as well.
Endosulfan polluted land but more than that it leeched into all the water bodies and precipitated in groundwater which is permanent contamination and cannot be completely eradicated from the ecosystem. Through water, it gradually reached all the living beings in that region and is causing never-ending deformities generation after generation. Ecocide is not just a problem for a few; it can hinder the whole balance of earth and the very existence of any form of life.
The Union Carbide factory explosion or the so-called Bhopal gas tragedy remains the world’s worst industrial accident and its dreadful legacy becomes increasingly apparent. It happened in the outskirts of Bhopal in India on 2 December 1984 where 40 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate gas were released into the air, killing over 3,000 instantly and destined thousands to a future of prolonged pain, cancer, stillbirths, miscarriages, lung and heart disease. The scars have not yet healed but the situation is getting worse, not better with more and more children born with disabilities.
Years of protest against soft drink plant Plachimada in the Palakkad District, which is known as the ‘rice bowl of Kerala’ and the Niger delta oil pipeline blast plaguing the life of the Bodo community are potent examples of cultural rape and destruction of nature. The majority of the population in Plachimada consists of Adivasis (indigenous people) their life is threatened by chromium pollution from the plant. The oil explosion in Bodo degraded the swamps and their water bodies.
Mining in the Western Ghats, deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia, nuclear accidents such as Chornobyl and Fukushima, the Athabasca Tar sands operations, deep sea mining and bottom trawling are all examples of severe, systematic and repeatedly committing harm (Ecocide) to nature and its bio-diversity which resulted in the current climate and ecological emergency that we face now. Making one responsible for a crime can stop it, the law should align themselves in order to give equality and justice not just to humans but to all creatures in this world.
As Polly Higgins quoted “The rules of our world are laws, and they can be changed. Laws can restrict or they can enable. What matters is what they serve. Many of the laws in our world serve property they are based on ownership. But imagine a law that has a higher moral authority a law that puts people and the planet first. Imagine a law that starts from first does no harm that stops this dangerous game and takes us to a place of safety”. Once we commoditized humanity on the basis of colour as human slavery. And now we put a prize on earth and destroy it. Should killing nature be a crime? Does earth deserve to live?
