My Lords, when I saw that the speakers’ list said Baroness Khan, I was worried. I thought I might have to text my beloved Lady Khan in Burnley and ask her to come and represent the Front Bench.
The question of whether the UK should adopt and build on proposals currently being considered by members of the International Criminal Court is an interesting one, and we are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for tabling these amendments. Their message is clear; they are simple and coherent.
The first amendment asks the UK Government to play an active role in the international negotiations to establish a crime of ecocide. We hope that the UK, as a state party to the Rome statute, is indeed participating in those discussions and playing a constructive role. Can the Minister confirm what position we have been taking in such talks? I look forward to hearing from him on that. The second amendment seeks to establish a domestic criminal offence of ecocide. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, spoke with great expertise and knowledge when she talked about domestic laws coming in in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, where people are causing ecological disaster.
The crime of ecocide has been a topic of debate since the Vietnam War, as has been mentioned, when the US army defoliated vast areas of jungle for military advantage. Since then, instances of irreversible damage or destruction to ecosystems—for example, to boreal forests, tropical forests and the oceans—have led to proposals to make ecocide an international crime on a par with genocide. The point that this is on a par with genocide and crimes against humanity has been made very eloquently by noble Lords.
In 2018, 94 UK academics urged those with power to defend life itself from an unprecedented disaster of our own making. The UK Parliament responded by becoming the first country to declare a climate emergency. Since 2019, 2,000 places across 34 countries have declared a climate and ecological emergency at local, regional, state or national level.
A suggested solution to the climate and ecological emergency has been gaining traction in legal, political and academic circles. The use of ecological law has been put forward as a solution, focusing on criminal damage to, or the destruction of, ecosystems, which has been mooted as the ecocide law. The question of whether to establish a criminal offence and, if so, how such a process should be undertaken is always complex. We have interpreted the amendment as a means of probing the Government’s intentions in this area. We hope the Minister can provide a detailed response, either from the Dispatch Box or in writing following the conclusion of the Committee.