A Word for Mass Destruction of the Environment
Ecocide • noun • (ee-coh-side)
Definition: The mass destruction and damage of ecosystems; severe harm to nature which is widespread or long-term.
Origin: English
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When I first began my search for a word to define the systemic inequalities of American life, I was unaware that the word ethnocide had already been coined by Raphael Lemkin in the 1940s.
I had formulated the word on my own, and then found out that Lemkin’s word had been practically ignored for over 70 years. Much of the conversation that I have conducted through this newsletter, my forthcoming book The Crime Without a Name, and other mediums focuses on the cultural shift that can occur through language, but Lemkin’s work also provides the foundation for a legal shift, too.
When Lemkin coined genocide, he did not aspire to create a word solely for the purpose of raising awareness and creating a cultural shift. He intended for the word to be the foundation for new legal standards that could criminalize acts of genocide.
Lemkin created a legal definition for genocide and his efforts helped reshape international law. In the ensuing years, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression became crimes according to international law. In recent years, there has been a push to create a fifth international atrocity crime, as humanity becomes increasingly aware of how the destruction of the environment imperils all of us.
Ecocide could become the fifth atrocity crime within international law, and the first step towards becoming a law is the creation of a legal definition. In June 2021, the organization Stop Ecocide International took this step and now the world finally has an official legal definition for ecocide. To create this definition, Stop Ecocide International commissioned a panel of 12 experts in international criminal law and environmental law to craft the requisite language, and they worked for six months to craft the definition.
Here is part of the definition: “For the purpose of this Statute, “ecocide” means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”
You can read the rest of the definition and their report here.
The impact of this language could reshape the world for the better and help society preserve our environment and combat climate change, and it also helps lay the foundation for making ethnocide a punishable crime.
Ecocide, Ethnocide, and Genocide
Ethnocide and ecocide are often interwoven, but it is important to recognize that they represent different atrocities. Likewise, genocide and ethnocide have similarities but are different crimes. The overlap between these three atrocities exists because a people’s (genos) culture (ethnos) is shaped by the place or environment (ecos) in which they live.
If you destroy a people’s environment, you will also destroy the cultural practices that are connected to the environment, and then eventually the people might die too. For example, if a corporation pollutes the water of an Indigenous community, this toxic water can result in deaths and life threatening cancer diagnoses. Additionally, since this waterway has been the life source of this community for centuries, many of their cultural practices will have focused on preserving and respecting the water and the marine life within it. By poisoning the water, many of the cultural practices of this community have also been destroyed.
At SCL, our narrative around ethnocide originated by applying this language to the transatlantic slave trade, but the term in no way is intended to be applied exclusively to people of the African Diaspora. We have narratively focused on the transatlantic slave trade because the atrocity committed against African people is almost exclusively one of ethnocide. This singular event makes it easier for people to understand the impact of ethnocide without merging it with genocide and other atrocities.
In the Americas, Indigenous people have experienced the overlapping terror of genocide, ethnocide, and ecocide. Non-Indigenous people have not experienced the same dystopian trifecta, but it is important to differentiate between these manifestations of terror so that we can understand and articulate the atrocities that have impacted our communities.
As a Black American, American ethnocide has shaped my community from the moment we were taken from Africa. After colonizers inflicted genocide upon Indigenous people, enslaved Africans were forced to remake the land of the South so that it could grow the crops—rice, cotton, tobacco, etc.—that would generate wealth for white colonizers. The ethnocidees were forced to remake the land from a sacred life giving force into a source of white wealth, and this is also a manifestation of ecocide. The justification for polluting water and destroying the environment in order to drill for oil or mine for coal follows a similar logic. The environment and a sustainable way of life come in a distant second to the pursuit of wealth.
The environments where people of color have been forced to live in America have been systematically neglected and polluted. Scott Wilson Badenoch Jr., SCL’s Director of Law and Policy, describes this convergence of ethnocide and ecocide as a dynamic of ethnocidal societies where they aspire to create “disposable people, disposable places.” The humanity and culture of the ethnocidee is not valued within ethnocide, and due to this, neither is the environment in which they live. Poisoning the water of Flint, Michigan equates to another manifestation of ecocide within American ethnocide.
Ecocide Today
As temperatures rise around the world, the deadly ramifications of climate change are becoming all the more apparent to all of us. California is experiencing record droughts and our storms are becoming more intense. Just this week, New York City had a record storm that flooded the subway and countless roads.
Climate change is caused by the creation of a global economic community that has long justified the destruction and pollution of the environment, so in order to combat climate change we must also cultivate language and laws to criminalize and punish the destruction of the environment. Developing policies and signing agreements committing nations to becoming more environmentally-friendly is one part of the process, but we also must be able to punish and disincentivize bad actors. Creating the legal definition for ecocide is a vital step in this process.
Earlier this month, a leak from an offshore drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in an “eye of fire” reminiscent of a dystopian novel as flames burned the water. Yet despite the environmental damage, few people anticipate that the oil company Pemex will suffer significant repercussions. Additionally, it is understood that the U.S. government engages in very little oversight to ensure that the underwater drilling is safe. We currently have a status quo where the destruction of the environment has become the anticipated price of doing business.
Criminalizing ecocide is one method for preserving our environment and combating climate change. Defining this crime within the legal community is a necessary step for sustaining our environment, but there are many more steps to follow. One of these steps is for regular people and non-lawyers to start using the word ecocide to describe the environmental destruction that has negatively impacted all of us in a myriad of ways.
The voices of the people can influence the creation of new laws, and having a legal definition of ecocide makes this process even easier. It makes our words even more powerful as we work to combat ecocide.
