O ecocídio e o tribunal penal internacional: um estudo acerca do surgimento do termo e da proposta de emenda ao estatuto de Roma

Abstract

Due to the natural disasters caused or influenced by man and their social, political and economic impacts, the characterization of crimes against the environment, in the form of the criminal type called ecocide, is being discussed in the legal environment. The present work has the general objective of conducting a study on the criminalization of ecocide at the international level. To achieve this general objective, the following specific objectives were determined: to carry out a historical analysis of the evolution of International Environmental Law and the appearance of the term ecocide and its later definitions; to conduct a historical analysis of the attempts to criminalize ecocide at the international level and the benefits of a classification by the International Criminal Court; and, finally, to analyze the project submitted by Polly Higgins to the International Law Commission, the procedure for amending the Rome Statute and the document presented in 2016 by the ICC Prosecutor's Office. The methodology used was bibliographic research, carried out by means of books, theses, dissertations, articles, and documental analysis, by means of legislation, conventions and international treaties and yearbooks of the sessions of the United Nations’s Commission on International Law and the General Assembly. The work is divided into three theoretical chapters that present the emergence of the term ecocide and its historical evolution, starting from a premise of damage to the environment caused as a result of armed conflicts, and culminating in the modern understanding of the damage caused to the environment in periods of peace. In the second chapter, it analyzed the failure of the treaties on environmental protection to curb harmful practices to the environment and analyzes the attempts to criminalize ecocide. Finally, concludes by evaluating the new project, headed by activist Polly Higgins, who seeks to amend the Rome Statute, adding ecocide to the list of crimes against peace, and the document presented by the Prosecutor's Office in 2016. Through the study carried out, it was possible to observe the need to establish ecocide as a crime and the ICC as the body for investigation and judgment, as a way to prevent harmful practices and to guarantee the duty of care to the environment, being observed that the project submitted offers the necessary bases for the drafting of an amendment to the Rome Statute, and that with regard to the prosecutor's document, although it does not have the competence to modify the Rome Statute, it seeks to consider environmental impacts when assessing the seriousness and priority of cases, generating a greater public awareness to environmental damage.