Ecocide: an Ambiguous Crime? 生态灭绝：一个暧昧不清的罪名？

译者｜司徒沛宏 纽约大学LL.M.

审稿｜刘汉青 北京师范大学硕士

         郑晨焕 WUSTL LL.M

编辑｜陈宣颖 西南政法大学本科

责编 | Izzy 美国西北大学LL.M.

Ecocide: an Ambiguous Crime?

生态灭绝：一个暧昧不清的罪名？

Written by Jérôme de Hemptinne

作者：Jérôme de Hemptinne

原文发表时间：2022年8月29日

One year ago, a panel of legal experts convened by the Stop Ecocide International Foundation (Expert Panel) proposed that the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) be amended to expand the ICC’s jurisdiction to include ecocide. To effect this change, the Expert Panel drew up the following definition of the crime of ecocide:

一年前，停止生态灭绝国际基金会召集的法律专家小组（以下简称专家小组）提议修改《国际刑事法院（ICC）规约》以扩大ICC的管辖权，使其包括生态灭绝。为实现这一变化，专家小组将生态灭绝犯罪定义如下：

‘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.’

“在明知极有可能对环境造成严重、广泛或长期损害的情况下实施的非法或肆意行为”。

According to this definition, conduct must meet two thresholds to qualify as ecocide. First, the conduct must be committed with knowledge of a substantial likelihood of serious damage. Second, it must either be unlawful in domestic or international law or wanton, meaning that it must committed ‘with reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated.’

根据该定义，构成生态灭绝犯罪的行为需要满足两个门槛。第一，实施该行为时必须明知很有可能会对环境造成严重损害。第二，该行为必须在国内法或国际法中是非法的，或者该行为是肆意的，即其必须“毫不顾及地造成与预期的社会和经济利益相比明显过度的损害”。

In this post, I intend to show that the drafting of this definition, which intimately connects ecocide to aspects of both International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the ICC Statute, is dictated by the necessity to maximize its chances of being adopted by a large majority of States. The drafting also appears to be justified by the need to mask the uncertain nature of the crime of ecocide. Indeed, while it is increasingly accepted that the massive destruction of the environment affects significant international values and interests and ultimately constitutes a threat to peace and security, ecocide does not yet qualify as an international crime under customary or conventional international law.

在本文中，我打算说明该定义的起草是出于使其最大限度被大多数国家采纳的必要性。它将生态灭绝与国际人道法和《国际刑事法院规约》紧密地联系起来。同时，该起草也似乎是为了掩盖生态灭绝罪的不确定性。实际上，虽然人们越来越认识到大规模破坏环境会严重影响国际价值和利益，并最终威胁到和平与安全，但根据国际习惯法或传统国际法，生态灭绝尚不构成国际犯罪。

Ecocide, an IHL Violation?

生态灭绝是否违反国际人道法？

The link between the proposed ecocide definition and IHL is obvious. It directly borrows the terms ‘severe’, ‘widespread’ and ‘long-term damage’ from Art. 35(3) and Art. 55 of Additional Protocol I (AP I). There is, however, a significant difference between these texts in that these terms are put in the alternative in the proposed definition, while they are cumulative in AP I. That said, it remains questionable whether the reference to these requirements is appropriate, given that they have acquired a restrictive connotation in the IHL context, so restrictive in fact that some scholars have considered them to be inapplicable in practice. Even more fundamentally, it should perhaps be asked whether it is justifiable to root ecocide in IHL concepts. This seems particularly awkward when the proposed definition does not require that ecocide be committed in the context of an armed conflict. Moreover, damage caused to the environment is already recognized as a war crime in international armed conflict by Art. 8(2)(b)(iv) of the ICC Statute. Reproducing constitutive elements that originate from an IHL convention seems to indicate that the ambiguous notion of ecocide, in order to be included in the ICC Statute and to be generally accepted by States, needs to receive some sort of ‘blessing’ from a widely ratified IHL instrument.

草拟的生态灭绝定义和国际人道法具有明显的联系。该定义直接借用第一附加议定书（AP I）第35条第3款和第55条中“严重”、“广泛”和“长期损害”等术语。然而，这两个文本中存在一个显著的区别，即在草拟的定义中这些术语是或者的关系，而在AP I中这些术语是并且的关系。也就是说，鉴于这些术语在国际人道法的语境下内涵已经受到了限制，以至于一些学者认为它们在实践中无法适用，在草拟的定义中引用这些术语是否合适仍然存在疑问。更根本的问题是，我们是否应该以国际人道法概念为基础来定义生态灭绝。当草拟的定义不要求生态灭绝在武装冲突的背景下适用时，这个问题显得尤为棘手。此外，对环境造成的损害已经被《国际刑事法院规约》第8条第(2)(b)(iv)款确认为国际武装冲突中的战争犯罪。引用来自国际人道法相关公约的构成要素来起草生态灭绝定义的行为似乎表明了，生态灭绝这个模糊的概念需要借助广泛批准的国际人道法作为工具被纳入《国际刑事法院规约》，并被各国普遍接受。

This brings to mind an old debate regarding crimes against humanity. To fall under the jurisdiction of the Nuremberg Tribunal, such crimes had to be committed ‘in execution of or in connection with’ a crime against peace or a war crime. At the time, this link was deemed justified by the fact that the inclusion of crimes against humanity in Art. 6 of the Nuremberg Charter was revolutionary: for the first time in history, atrocities perpetrated against a State’s own nationals or its allies could qualify as international offenses (see here). As this approach represented a significant encroachment upon State sovereignty and, potentially, a violation of the principle nullum crimen sine lege, it was felt necessary to link crimes against humanity to commonly accepted international crimes. However, this relationship with the laws of war had the downside of preventing crimes against humanity from instantly becoming independent crimes. It took time and energy for international institutions, States, judges, and scholars to progressively accept the removal of such a linkage with war related criminality. It is beyond the scope of this post to recall the long evolution of crimes against humanity (on this subject, see here and here). It suffices to highlight here that, 50 years after Nuremberg, Art. 5 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was still requiring a link to an armed conflict. In 1996, the ICTY Appeals Chamber (in Tadić) finally admitted that, under customary international law, this requirement was no longer a ‘substantive element’ of crimes against humanity, but only a ‘jurisdictional condition’ imposed by the Security Council. Art. 3 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and Art. 7 of the ICC Statute have endorsed this interpretation, which is now largely accepted (see, e.g., here, and here).

这让人想起了关于危害人类罪的一场古老辩论。要受到纽伦堡法庭的管辖，该类罪名必须是在执行反和平罪或战争罪，或与反和平罪或战争罪相关的过程中实施的。当时，这种联系被认为是合理的，因为将危害人类罪纳入到《纽伦堡宪章》第6条具有革命性的意义：这是历史上第一次，将针对一个国家自己的国民或者盟友犯下的暴行视为国际罪行。由于这种做法对国家主权造成了严重的侵犯，且可能违反罪刑法定的原则，人们认为有必要将危害人类罪与普遍接受的国际犯罪相联系。然而，这种与战争法的联系，存在阻碍危害人类罪成为独立罪名的弊端。国际机构、国家、法官和学者们花费了不少的时间和精力来逐步接受移除这种与战争犯罪的相关联系。回顾危害人类罪的长期演变过程超出了本文的讨论范围。在此只需要强调，在纽伦堡审判的50年后，《前南斯拉夫问题国际刑事法庭（ICTY）规约》的第5条仍然要求危害人类罪与武装冲突存在联系。1996年，前南斯拉夫问题国际法庭上诉分庭在塔迪奇案中最终承认，根据国际习惯法，这一要求不再是危害人类罪的“实质性要素”，而只是安全理事会规定的“管辖条件”。这一解释被《卢旺达问题国际刑事法庭（ICTR）规约》第3条和《国际刑事法院规约》第7条所认可，且目前已经被普遍接受。

It is true that the proposed definition does not as such connect ecocide to war crimes or to other undisputed ICC crimes. That said, the provision of the Nuremberg Charter on crimes against humanity and the proposed definition of ecocide both seem to be inspired by a similar idea. A link with an existing international crime – in the case of crimes against humanity – or existing components of an international crime – in the case of ecocide – is considered indispensable to facilitate their recognition at the international level and their acceptance by States. But what should have been learnt from the Nuremberg experience is that the creation of a dubious relationship with the laws of war – albeit for legitimate purposes – contributed to diluting the essence of crimes against humanity, which is now finally recognized as protecting the dignity of civilian populations and their fundamental rights when seriously threatened, not only by hostilities, but also by other forms of mass violence. In the same vein, the proposed definition of ecocide might itself ultimately lead to hiding the fundamental essence of this crime, which is to safeguard environmental values and standards when threatened by harmful activities whatever they are (military or non-military), whenever they occur (before, during, or after an armed conflict). This is even more so the case when, by connecting environmental criminality to a branch of international law that is deeply anthropocentric, the proposed definition largely takes away the ‘ecocentric’ dimension of ecocide. 

诚然，草拟的定义并没有将生态灭绝与战争罪或者其他没有争议的ICC罪名联系起来。尽管如此，《纽伦堡宪章》中关于危害人类罪的规定与草拟的生态灭绝定义似乎都受到了相似观点的启发。要促进上述概念在国际层面上的认可度和世界各国的接受度，与现有关于危害人类罪的国际犯罪，或与关于生态灭绝的国际犯罪构成的联系被认为是不可或缺的。但是纽伦堡的经验应当让我们认识到，与战争法建立一种暧昧的关系，尽管是出于合法性的考量，也会稀释危害人类罪的重要性，而现在人们终于认识到危害人类罪不仅在敌对行动中，而且在其他形式的大规模暴力威胁中，也起到了保护平民人格尊严和基本权利的作用。同样，草拟的生态灭绝定义本身也可能最终掩盖这一罪行的本质，即在危害活动（军事或非军事的）发生时（武装冲突之前、期间或之后）保护环境的价值和标准。如果我们将环境犯罪与国际法中以人类为中心的一个分支联系起来时，这种情况尤为显著。草拟的定义在很大程度上剥夺了生态灭绝中以生态为中心的层面。

Ecocide, an ICC Crime?

生态灭绝是否属于ICC罪名？

The proposed definition is also heavily influenced by provisions contained in the ICC Statute, as illustrated by the three following examples. First, the definition refers to a ‘proportionality test’ (wanton damage must ‘be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated’). This directly echoes a similar test introduced in the context of war crimes by Art. 8(2)(a)(iv) of the ICC Statute (damage must ‘be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage’). Such a proportionality test – which was not originally foreseen in Art. 35(3) and Art. 55 of the AP I – illustrates the delicate tension that exists among States between the protection of the environment on the one hand and the preservation of their strategic interests on the other. Should a similar balancing exercise between environmental considerations and socio-economic interests be conducted for ecocide? Some scholars have already shown that this comparison would be inapplicable in practice and seriously detrimental to the protection of the environment. Second, the intentional element (‘knowledge of substantial likelihood’) of ecocide has, to a certain extent, been guided by Art. 30 of the ICC Statute and, thus, excludes the applicability of (serious) ‘negligence’ (see here). Also encompassing the responsibility of persons who failed to exercise their duty of care to prevent serious environmental damage would have expended the mens rea standard, thereby offering additional opportunities for the prosecution of complex conducts harming the environment. Third, by mirroring Art. 25(1) of the ICC Statute, which recognizes the principle of individual criminal responsibility, the proposed definition does not envisage corporate liability. Thus, it excludes the possibility of multinational companies being directly sanctioned for the significant role they play in the destruction of the environment and being directly obliged to repair the damage that they cause  (see, e.g., here, here, and here).

草拟的定义也受《国际刑事法院规约》条款的影响，以下三个例子说明了这一点。第一，该定义提到了“比例原则”标准（肆意行为造成的的损害必须“与预期的社会和经济利益相比明显过度”）。这直接呼应了《国际刑事法院规约》第8条第(2)(a)(iv)款在战争罪中一个类似的检验标准（损害必须“相对于具体和直接的整体军事利益而言明显过度”）。这种最初并未在AP I第35条第3款和第55条中预见的比例原则标准，显示了各国在保护环境和维护其战略利益之间存在着的微妙的矛盾。对于生态灭绝，我们是否也应该在环境考量和社会经济利益之间寻找类似的平衡？这种比较方式已经被一些学者证明在实践中并不适用，而且严重损害了对环境的保护。第二，生态灭绝的故意要件（“明知极有可能”）在某种程度上受到《国际刑事法院规约》第30条的指引，因此排除了对（严重）过失的适用。此外如果把未能履行防止严重环境损害的注意义务的个人责任也纳入进来，会扩大犯罪意图标准，从而增加起诉损害环境的复杂行为的机会。第三，通过反映《国际刑事法院规约》第25条第1款承认个人刑事责任的原则，草拟的定义没有预设企业责任。因此，该定义排除了那些在损害环境方面起到重要作用的跨国公司直接受到制裁，以及直接承担对其造成的损害进行修复的义务的可能性。

By rooting the proposed definition of ecocide in the ICC Statute, the panel wanted to be ‘realistic’, in order to maximize the chances of building a consensus among States parties around the definition (see here). However, at the same time, by being constrained by several contingencies imposed by the ICC system, the proposed definition appears to be overly restrictive. This observation should be seen in view of the fact that the ICC was originally conceived as a means of repressing specific types of mass criminality (including against the environment) that occur in crisis situations. In other words, the ICC was not designed for the repression of multifaceted environmental activities occurring in peacetime, such as illegal mining, illegal deforestation, trafficking of waste and endangered species. These activities are most often rooted in other forms of organized violence, like corruption and money laundering, which escape the jurisdiction of the ICC. Moreover, the prosecution of such complex criminal practices would require judges, prosecutors, and defence counsel to have highly specialized legal and scientific knowledge and expertise, which, at present, many do not possess. It would also require important amendments to the current ICC rules of procedure and evidence. These rules should, for instance, contemplate the gathering, and the introduction in court, of technical evidence which relates to the adverse effects that hazardous substances have on living organisms (statistical or toxicological evidence) or relates to the progress of disease within a given population or area (epidemiological evidence). Specific provisions on environmental sanctioning and reparation should also be envisaged (for a discussion on the difficulties arising from the prosecution of environmental crimes, see here).

通过使草拟的生态灭绝定义根植于《国际刑事法院规约》，专家小组希望去切合实际，以最大程度在缔约国之间建立对该定义的共识。然而与此同时，由于受到ICC系统的一些偶发事件的限制，该定义似乎存在过多的局限性。上述观察是鉴于ICC最初是被视为在危急情况下抑制特定类型的大规模犯罪（包括破坏环境）这一事实。换言之，ICC并不是为抑制和平时期发生的多方面环境相关活动，如非法采矿，非法砍伐森林，和非法贩运废物及濒危物种而设计的。这些活动最寻常的根源是其他形式的有组织暴力，如腐败和洗钱，而这些行为不受ICC的管辖。此外，起诉这类复杂的犯罪行为需要法官、检察官和辩护律师具备高度专门化的法律和科技知识技能，而目前来说，大多数法律人并不具备这样的知识技能。起诉这类犯罪还需要对ICC现行程序和证据规则进行重大修改。例如，应该在程序和证据规则中考虑收集以及在法庭中呈现与有害物质对有机生物体不利影响有关的技术证据（统计学或毒物学证据），或与特定人群或地区病情发展相关的技术证据（流行病学证据）。另外，我们还应设想关于环境制裁和赔偿的具体规定（关于起诉环境犯罪会遇到的困难的讨论，见链接）。

Ecocide, an International Crime?

生态灭绝是否构成国际犯罪？

Ultimately, anchoring ecocide in existing IHL and ICL instruments seems to be a way of masking the uncertain nature of this crime. Three reasons are frequently invoked in support of marking ecocide as the ‘fifth international crime’. First, the ‘safety of the planet’ is increasingly recognized as being among the core ‘supra-national’ values and interests that must be protected internationally. This is evidenced by the fact that ecocide is often referred to as being ‘of concern to the international community as a whole’ (see, e.g., here). Second, the massive exploitation and destruction of natural resources usually transcend national borders by involving or affecting the interests of several States. To stop these exploitation and destruction, coordinated action at the international level is required. Third, the commission of environmental criminality on a massive scale usually threatens peace and security, like any other international crime.

最终，将生态灭绝锚定在现有的国际人道法和国际刑法似乎是掩盖这一罪行的不确定性本质的一个方式。在支持生态灭绝作为第五种国际犯罪的讨论中，有三个原因经常被提到。首先，“地球的安全”越发被认为属于必须在国际层面被保护的“超国家”核心价值和利益之一。这可以从我们经常称生态灭绝受到“国际社会全体的关注”这一事实中得到证明。其次，对自然资源的大规模开发和破坏经常通过涉及或者影响数国利益的方式超越国界。我们需要国际层面的协调行动来阻止这类开发和破坏。最后，大规模的环境犯罪行为，跟其他国际犯罪一样，通常会威胁和平与安全。

These moral/political grounds could play a role in advancing the criminalization of activities that severely harm the environment, but these grounds do not alone suffice to make these activities proper international crimes. Indeed, it is usually agreed that the criminalization of a given conduct needs to be supported by a formal binding source of international law, a customary norm or a widely ratified treaty (assuming that a treaty could directly impose individual criminal responsibility without parallel customary incrimination, an assumption which remains disputed). In any event, there is currently no general State practice that univocally considers ecocide to be a crime under customary international law. Several organizations, such as the European Parliament and the United Nations Environment Programme, have urged States to formally criminalize ecocide in their domestic laws and consider subjecting it to the principle of universal jurisdiction. However, as of today, only a dozen of them have formally adopted such laws. The many environmental conventions that have been ratified over the last decades do not even make environmental criminality a ‘transnational crime.’ Indeed, these conventions do not impose obligations upon States to criminalize and prosecute serious violations of these conventions at the national level (see here, and here). Most confine themselves to providing a general description of transnational activities that are – or that are not – permissible, and to establishing guidelines to prevent or reduce their transborder impacts (see here).

这些道德或政治理由在推动使严重危害环境的活动犯罪化的过程中可以发挥重要作用，但这些理由本身不足以让这些活动成为合适的国际犯罪。事实上，人们通常认为，特定行为的犯罪化需要得到具有约束力的正式国际法渊源的支持，可以是习惯规范，也可以是广泛批准的条约（这是基于条约可以直接规定个人的刑事责任，不需要平行的习惯法来入罪的假设，这种假设仍然存在争议）。无论如何，目前还没有一个普遍的国家实践明确地认为生态灭绝是国际习惯法下的一种犯罪。一些组织，如欧洲议会和联合国环境规划署，已经敦促各国在国内法律中正式将生态灭绝规定为犯罪，并考虑将其置于普遍管辖权原则之下。然而迄今为止，只有十数个国家正式通过了这种法律。过去的几十年中，已经批准的许多环境公约甚至没有把国际犯罪规定为“跨国犯罪”。这些公约实际上也没有向国家施加定罪和起诉在国家层面上严重违反公约的行为的义务。大多数公约局限于对是否允许跨国活动进行一般性描述，并制定防止或者减少跨境影响的指引。

In this context, it is tempting, as it clearly tempted the Expert Panel, to raise ecocide to the rank of an international crime by directly incorporating it into the ICC Statute, alongside other undisputed international crimes. If the consequence of such incorporation remains unclear (depending on whether the ICC Statute is considered to be jurisdictional or substantive in nature), it would undoubtedly contribute to a wider recognition of ecocide as a criminal offence at the international level and, through the complementarity mechanism, at the national level too. This temptation led the Expert Panel, aspiring to even a slight chance of success, to propose an overly restrictive definition of ecocide. Given, however, that the ICC is currently unsuited to prosecute and try this type of criminality, it is likely that any success in adding ecocide to its jurisdiction will remain purely symbolic.   

在这种情况下，通过直接纳入《国际刑事法院规约》的方式将生态灭绝升级为与其他没有争议的罪名并列的国际犯罪很具有诱惑力，专家小组也显然受到了这种诱惑。如果这种纳入的后果维持在一种模糊的状态（取决于《国际刑事法院规约》被认为是管辖权性质的的还是实质性的规约），这种状态无疑将有助于在国际层面上更广泛地承认生态灭绝是一种刑事犯罪，并通过互补性机制渗透到国家的层面。这种诱惑使专家小组，抱着哪怕只有一线成功可能的希望，提出了一个过度限制性的生态灭绝定义。然而，鉴于ICC目前并不适合起诉和审判这种类型的犯罪行为，即使成功把生态灭绝纳入ICC的管辖范围内，这种成功可能也只是纯粹象征性的。

参考链接：

https://www.ejiltalk.org/ecocide-an-ambiguous-crime/