Hybrid Event:
As the environmental emergency accelerates across the world, responsibility for environmental harm becomes paramount. While environmental law tends to put in place stringent standards of environmental management, conservation and pollution, mechanisms for enforcing these standards has generally not been environmental law’s strong suit. Corporate and other actors are able to evade environmental regulation through limited corporate liability regimes, by ‘outsourcing’ their polluting activities through global supply chains, or by paying fines, rather than changing their practices that cause harm to the environment. Given this wide gap between environmental goals and the reality of environmental protection, criminal law is increasingly seen as a solution that could ensure individual responsibility for the most serious environmental crimes. A recent proposal to amend the Rome Statute to incorporate the crime of ecocide is one of many legislative initiatives aimed at criminalising environmental harm. Similar initiatives can be observed in the EU, Scotland, and many legal systems around the world.
This hyrbid roundtable brings together researchers working in international, environmental and criminal law, to take stock of these ongoing international and national initiatives. Building on the recent report by the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, the discussion will interrogate the challenges, promises and ways forward for these legislative initiatives in Scotland and internationally.
Panellists:
Julia Leino (Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland)
Prof. Lindsay Farmer (University of Glasgow)
Dr Anni Pues (University of Glasgow)
Dr Giedre Jokubauskaite (University of Glasgow)
Chair: Dr Alain Zysset (University of Glasgow)
Please register via our Eventbrite page. The event will take place in person and online. A link to join the meeting remotely will be circulated ahead of the event.