 Welcome, everybody. This is the Preventing Ecoside Issue Briefing, and it's part of the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit. My name is David Sassoon. I'm the founder and publisher of Inside Climate News. We are an independent, not-for-profit newsroom covering climate change based in the United States, and we probably run the largest dedicated climate newsroom in the country. We have been covering the issue of Ecoside since last year. It's a subject of tremendous interest to us. Every single one of our reporters is involved in one way or another reporting on the issue, and so I'm tremendously excited to be able to tap the wisdom of these three global experts that are with us today. Before I introduce them, let me just frame this in the following way. You could say one of the largest, the largest Ecoside underway at the moment is climate change. Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake in the coming decades, and if all of those lives are lost, it would not be illegal. There is a movement afoot to criminalize environmental destruction, like climate change, and others, and that's what we're here to discuss today. What is it? How would it work? Would it really protect the environment? Would it protect indigenous peoples? And would it change the way we do business? So let me introduce the panelists today. First, Veronica Scotty, who is the chairperson of Public Sector Solutions from Swissry, the largest reinsurance company in the world, if I'm not mistaken. She has also previously been the president and CEO of Swissry in Canada. Also with us today is Hindu Umaru Ibrahim, who is the president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad. She, through that and her involvement with the Africa Coordinating Committee for Indigenous Peoples and involvement in the UN, she also brings a global perspective to today's discussion. And finally, Philippe Sands, professor of law and director of the Center of International Courts and Tribunals, book author, gifted writer, and Philippe, I want to turn this over to you to set the table for us, if you would. Tell us about Ecoside and let's get the discussion going. Thank you, David, for the invitation. And it's absolutely lovely to be here with Veronica and Hindu. I'm here, I suppose, because I co-chaired with Dio Fallo, a distinguished Senegalese jurist, a working group of 12 people tasked with coming up with a legal definition of Ecoside as an international crime. So the work we've done has focused on the international and its intended to fill a gap. Since 1945, there have been four international crimes, mostly emerging at the famous Nuremberg trial. Aggression, waging illegal war, genocide, killing groups, crimes against humanity, killing individuals, and old style war crimes. And the gap, of course, is that all of those address wrongdoing by humans fakes with the protection of humans. There's no international crime concerning the protection of the environment. If you massively damage and destroy the environment, as things stand, it is not an international crime. So our proposal has been, now apparently supported by the Pope and the Secretary General of the United Nations, to amend the statute of the International Criminal Court. The definition we've come up with is most certainly not the last word. There will be plenty of work to be done. But essentially, for the purposes of our draft, we define Ecoside as an international crime, which means the unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there's a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts. And the basic idea is the statute of the ICC, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, be amended to include this crime. I'll stop there. I'll just say one thing. I also work as a barrister, and I have done advice for corporations and individuals associated with corporations, for example, in the tobacco industry. And I can tell you that nothing concentrates the mind more of a chief executive or chief operating officer than the possibility they may be criminally liable for something they have done. And I think what this is about is changing consciousness. I'm not starry-eyed. Genocide went onto the statute book in 1948. It has not stopped mass murder, same with crimes against humanity. It's a step towards changing consciousness. Philip, if I can just follow up and ask you, in relation to climate change, how would something like that apply to a situation that has been going on for a very long time? How could it have an impact? Excellent question. And as you can imagine, we spent a lot of time on climate change. But those who've read the commentary on work will have noticed we've not mentioned any particular acts. And very frankly, that is strategic. Two things. Firstly, once you put in a list of acts, climate change, dumping, hazardous waste, nuclear, whatever, you leave certain things out. And they are, by implication, considered to be acceptable. Secondly, by putting in a list, you automatically create a coalition of opposition. Every single one of us is a contributor to climate change. I am. I drive. I emit greenhouse gases. I do all sorts of other horrible things, no doubt. And I am responsible. Does that make me a climate criminal? What we decided to do was to come up with a definition which, of course, is capable of being applied to the field of climate change. So, for example, noting the announcement today by China that it will no longer invest in coal developments outside of China, the financing or the insurance, Veronica's with us, of a coal field, a new coal field in certain countries could make you an eco-sider. The question will be for a prosecutor and the judges in due course to determine on the facts of a particular case whether an individual is engaging in an act which, because of its scale or its effect, crosses an international threshold. Right. Let me tell viewers that you can submit questions and we will try to work them in or get to them as we go along. Hindu, if I can turn to you. One of my reporters said something to me last week. She said it's an obvious thing, but it's also profound. And that is that the destruction of the environment is intertwined with the abuse of human rights and the loss of lives of indigenous peoples. So, especially. So, I wonder if you could talk about that and help us understand how you view Ecoside from where you are. Sure. Thank you very much, David. It's really a great pleasure to be with you, Philippe and also Veronica here. So, I think what Philippe said is really very important. Finally, maybe we can really get a criminal cause of those who are destroying the nature rather than doing the opposite because this is what is happening for indigenous peoples. When we stand up protecting our land, we have been killed for it. So, we have so many indigenous peoples that are getting killed just because they wanted to protect the rest of the species of the nature as their own land, rivers, forests, all the ecosystem that's surrounding them. So, this making the opposite way of what is happening to the indigenous peoples, it seems very interesting to us. But firstly, I think before maybe to have this call, we need to give a right for the other species. So, we need to define the right of rivers, right of oceans, right of trees, right of insects, right of traditional medicine. So, all those, they must have a right because we cannot just say, as human being, we have the human rights that can protect us. And that's why when Philippe is planning the for existing definition or course of criminalizations, they are all to the humanity, to the human being one species. But do we have one for the rest of the species of the nature? We don't. As indigenous peoples, all the rest of the species of the nature have also the right. So, we need to define that in order to give the ecosystem a complete definition and complete way of how we can resolve it if a criminalization is happening. Hindu, I think it's very interesting what you're saying, you're talking about the rights of nature. And from what I understand, that is almost a bottom up kind of effort. And Ecoside, you might say, because it is an international crime, is a top down. And maybe there is a place where they meet. Are there examples of rights of nature that you're aware of that you can talk about and how it would work? Absolutely. So, for us, as indigenous peoples, we are just making 5% of the world's populations. But we protect 80% of the world's biodiversity. So, when people wanted to understand how we are protecting it, so that means we are making the two corners of right of the other species and how we can protect it if someone violates this right. So, how we do that, it is in our way of living. It is how we are passing our wisdom from one generation to another one. I give you the example in my community. So, when a child is growing up, he already must know he cannot act into the nature to destroy it without thinking about seven upcoming generations. You have to grow up with this idea. And to do it, you have to know the seven past generations of your communities, of your families. Like, I have to know my seven past grandparents, what they did, not only their names, what they did, sorry, what they did in their life. And then that can help me when I'm taking any decision to think about the seven upcoming generations. So, that's me. I cannot destroy the ecosystem that giving us food, medicine, and all what we need around us. So, we need to turn these indigenous peoples' wisdom to be an expression for others as a good practice or even as a law in our traditional mechanism to turn it to all the rest of the peoples to learn how to live in harmony and respect the nature. That's incredible. Seven generations back. You know all that? Yes. I'm enormously jealous. Veronica, to you now, the insurance industry plays a very interesting role in the global economy. You assess risk, you pay for damages, and you enable big multinational corporations to engage in all kinds of resource extraction and activities that often destroy the environment. And when this, let's just say when this becomes an international crime, how would it change the way you might do business, the way you might write policies? And also, I guess, moving forward, how does the insurance industry view this potential international crime? Thank you, David. And again, it's an incredible panel to be on because of the wisdom and actually the very fine legal work of both Hindu and Philipp. So I'm going to shock you maybe, but if and when the ecocide low passes, it will not change in my mind the way the industry works because my commitment, my belief is that the industry needs, has developed and will ever more perfect its consciousness with what Philipp referred to before. And so hopefully we're going to be way above the bar of a criminal law, which I think by its own nature will have to be crafted very clearly, very strictly to be applicable. And I really would like to expect all of us in the financial sector to rise way above that bar. Let me try and qualify a little bit my statement. You're quite right, insurance is a transversal industry to all economic activities. And we enable progress fundamentally by bringing risk insights, helping with risk mitigations, covering companies, governments, other insurance companies and putting a price on that risk. And by the nature of our business, especially as global reinsurers, what we do, we tend to focus a lot on systemic risks. So it's no surprise, I guess, for you and for our audience that this is for us very important because if we don't keep that a check, we will be wiped out financially very, very quickly. And actually, our commitment is to be around for hundreds of years. So we have to be very diligent in understanding the systemic risks. So we started with climate. We started 30 years ago. Biodiversity is a very important topic, for Swiss Free and for the industry at this point in time. And both elements are central to our sustainability business framework. So Ecoside, I place it under this umbrella of what doing sustainable business means. And it really links a little bit to what Hindo was saying before, before even reaching the point of the wanton act of abuse towards nature in an instructive capacity. We need to, I think we've come to the realization that our economic models have led us to have an agenda without being necessarily abusive, but have led us to have an instructive and imbalanced relationship with nature. And so we need to think about how do we account more correctly for the value that nature provides us. And also when we're not in a relationship, an instructive relationship, that respect, I think that Hindo was referring to, who speaks up for the natural capital and the natural habitat, since they don't speak the same language as we do. And so it was in 2018 that we started this research and launched for ourselves first, and now we've made it available across all parties that want to work with us, the biodiversity ecosystem index. And what this has shown us is that 55 percent, because you kind of have to create the causality, if you will, and the links between what we do and what we are going to do differently. So 55 percent of GDP depends on ecosystems. What I want to bring into this dialogue is that there is projected out a loss of ecosystem that is incredibly damaging. If you just want to be a hardcore financier, our economies are going to shrink by 18 percent, China by 25 percent, Europe and the U.S. by 10 percent, if we don't address the loss of biodiversity very, very clearly. But what the study also shows is that this loss of biodiversity has been progressive. And so I call it a bit the silent killer, because it would be very easy to go back to the actions back in the 70s and say, hey, the Vietnam War and the use of pesticides for war crime, it's a no-go. But the reality is there is a lot of us exactly like Philip said. We leave our footprint with everything we do. And we have to rise to a higher level of consciousness of how our economic activities can have an impact, very detrimental impact, little by little on the environment. So I would absolutely welcome a law on ecocide, but I wouldn't stop there. I think we just have to operate differently and help with this massive problem of resource allocations that today severely undervalues nature. If we all did what Hindu described, if we all look forward to next seven generations and what we inherited from the prior seven generations, I think we would have taken decisions differently. So in the vacuum of a law, I would hope that even the discussion about the potential implication of the ecocide can sharpen the attention that the industry has to this environmental impact. And to your point about how we're directing it, I'm sure you know, Swiss Free has a very explicit term called policy. As part of the sustainable business activities, we simply will do no harm to a national heritage. We'll do no harm to indigenous people. We have not supported projects that are financially viable because we believe that they are actually damaging other parts of society. So Veronica, I mean, the way you talk, I can't help remarking that you're enormously optimistic and make it seem as if there have been no environmental crimes committed and that industry would do fine. I mean, and that, you know, we should all, we can all handle it without some reckoning here. It's quite interesting that what Philippe said earlier, which was what if your company was presented with a project by a corporation that wanted to dig a coal mine that could be considered ecocidal? Would you finance it now? Or would you insure it now? And would you only not insure it if there was a law in place? I mean... No, that's what I was saying, David. Sorry. I'm sorry if my message didn't come across clearly. Somebody is insuring these coal mines right now, even though we know that we need to go to zero carbon, et cetera. So I mean, something's happening that's off kilter. I mean, Philippe, let me ask Philippe if he wants to say something to this. Could I please just clarify? I wasn't being a blasé about the ecocide point or there is no damage. I think it's not for me to be a jury and judge here in the sense that it hopefully will be taken to court and there will be proper proceedings for that. My message was that I think, in fact, we need to do more than just as an industry, not wait for the laws to be in place, but look at the substantive activities, whether the law permits it or not. There is a call to consciousness, right? We can choose to not do things. And as we see, we have chosen not to insure thermal coal in the same way as we have chosen through our public. And you can look it up, you know, it's public commitments, not to do damage to the environment, to ecosystems, as we've chosen not to finance or insure activities that have impact on indigenous people. And that doesn't make us always popular, but it's a choice. It's a commercial choice because we believe the right thing to do. I understand. Philly, you looked like you wanted to say something. Yeah, and I apologize. My laptop was about to crash and lose power. And so I have just changed things slightly. I mean, firstly, wonderful to listen to both Hindu and Veronica. I have to say this. I listened to Veronica. I have now been involved. I was at the climate change negotiations from 1990 to 1992 negotiated the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The idea that our existing arrangements have somehow delivered in any way is plainly wrong. We are on the cusp of a major crisis. And we are going to have to rethink completely what that means in practical terms. If you look at my own legal practice, okay, I act for governments around the world. For example, on maritime boundary disputes, two countries want to resolve a dispute. But very often, the dispute is about access to resources in the oceans, oil and gas. The reality is that my provision of legal advice and legal services litigating, arguing, advising, I'm effectively facilitating the opening up of access to oil and gas from the oceans. I think I have to ask myself long, hard questions whether that facilitation will soon come to the point if it doesn't already of crossing a line into criminality. And people like me have to ask themselves the question, it is time to stop. Hindu has referenced the seven generations. We don't do that in our world. We look four years into the future. How much profit are we going to make? Can we get the stuff out of the ground in eight or nine years? And I think there is now an urgency. The criminal law can't resolve those challenges. But what the criminal law can do is stop companies from engaging in certain activities, stop insurers from supporting certain activities. You can't get insurance against genocide risk. You shouldn't be able to get insurance against the risk of significant environmental harm. And that may well mean saying that insurers and other corporate supporters are simply going to have to pull the plug on all oil and gas activity, on all coal activity. And that, I think, is the kind of step we are now moving towards wanting. I'm not saying that an eco-side law of itself will make that happen. But it's part of the instruments that are available to us to protect communities, including Hindus community. That's really, really interesting. What else would need to be instrumentalized beside an eco-side law to prevent these projects from happening? What else are you referring to? It's plain that the economic system is tilted against the environment. It completely leverages short-term economic gains against the kind of long-term values that Hindu has quite rightly referred to. And so the economic system has got to be completely rethought. We have to look much more to the long term. I don't know whether it's seven generations or four generations. But it's changes to corporate laws. It's changes to accounting practices. It's changes to the valuation of the environment in determining whether a particular practice is economically viable. At this point, you don't pay damage. You don't integrate internalize in your economic calculus what the impact is going to be on the climate system or biodiversity or indigenous peoples. And that is, I think, what needs to change. It's a very dramatic, it's a sea change in thinking. I completely concur with Philip. And that's exactly why I think these activities that we're undertaking are important. Because by creating the tools and the transparency, that's Philip, what we need to work on, create full transparency. So it isn't just one or two or three or five or 10 companies in the financial systems that enable this, what you call the sea change, but actually it's the entire financial system that or a substantial part that tilts in that direction. I do think public sector can do more. I think it's good that there is a couple of governments that would be supportive of an economic law. I would hope that there is a much bigger movement to not only have an international law, but also national laws that recognize the value of the environments. And that's also a very big gap today. Yeah. So I think I agree with you, Veronica. We need to go beyond only to have a core of Ecoside. And then we have also to involve more partners, the private sectors, of course, those companies who are the one who are just putting all in value money, but something you cannot value is nature. So you cannot put any value on me and how we can bring government to also put this law or this legislation or whatever that's going to happen, working for all the system. I just wanted to share with you one of the very ridiculous examples that I do have with UN. When you wanted to travel with UN, you know, they ask you which kind of meeting that you are going. That's the first thing, to see if it is important for them, not for you. Secondly, the flight that they have to book you in, it's have to be the cheap of life. It doesn't matter for them that the flight may, two, three stop, go around the world before to end up to when you are going, even if there is a direct flight that's going. So for me, I say why you are doing that, because it's so ridiculous. If you take a direct flight, you are reducing the emission. If you go over the stop, you are increasing the emission. And why you are just stop putting the money value, because it's much cheaper, you don't care about emission that you are making. And then if you are going directly, you say also, no, it's so expensive. And it is the government who put us in this law. So how might the world see contradictory when we have all the law, we say, yes, you and put this and we have to respect the law, respect the human right. And when we come to the same organization, they say government was giving the money, they cannot allow us to do that. So better you end it, you make an emission. So at the end of the day, you see there is system break down. So are we going to take UN in the court because they make a more emission just because they wanted to save the money? Or are you going to take the government who are sitting in the UN who are taking the decision and asking them to do to take the cheaper flight? So this is the big questions for me. It is not only about the company. So how the government can change the system and make peoples all together and the same right to respect the nature. And for that indigenous peoples have a great examples. We all see from our way of living. If you are living around the forest, you cannot just go and take whatever that you found in the forest because it is there and there are plenty of them. You have to seek the balance of which species that you have to hunt, which one you have to live and you have to look at it by season. If you are living in the savannas, like my communities who are pastoralists, so we move from one place to another one. When you are around lecture, during the rain season, you get off the lake to just leave the water to wet all the place. And during the dry season, you come back in. So that means we don't care about the money that is costing, but we care about how much we are protecting the species and taking the balance. So the work must aspire from what we are doing and change the entire system in order to make fear the ecosystem procedures that we are putting in the place. Yeah, I just got to know. We do have to wrap up shortly. Thank you, Hindu. You know, we are closely following a lawsuit or not a lawsuit, but a complaint. I'm not sure what the right word is. That was brought by two indigenous tribes in Brazil against the government of Brazil for crimes against humanity. The destruction, their argument is the destruction of the rainforest where they live and what their entire culture is dependent on constitutes a crime against humanity because it's destroying their lives and threatening their extinction. And you know, how do you put a price on that kind of damage as well? It's not just nature. It's also the individuals and especially the indigenous peoples. That's what we keep finding in our reporting are the most victimized quite often. I think I'm supposed to wrap up, but if any of you wants 30 seconds, the floor is open. Just on exactly that point. I mean, Hindu made the point earlier and she's right. Crimes against humanity. I don't want to undermine the case in any way, but the problem with crimes against humanity is that it's focused on harm to the human being. And harm to the human being means killing, rape, torture. It doesn't mean destroying their homes and so on and so forth. And that's the problem. We have an anthropocentric legal order and we need to move towards an eco-centric legal order. And as international environmental laws have come into place, the one gap is in the criminal sphere, which is totally anthropocentric. Absolutely. We don't want genocides. We want to protect groups. Absolutely. We don't want war crimes. Absolutely. We don't want to kill individuals, crimes against humanity, and we don't want illegal wars. But the gap is the environment, the ecosystem. And it goes back to the single best law review article I ever read when I was a young student by a wonderful American scholar called Christopher Stone. It's the same point that Hindu makes. The article was called Should Trees Have Standing? And it's about rethinking the human's relationship to the natural world and giving the natural world not only legs, but rights. Veronica, you want to have the last word? I will just be very brief. I concur that the shift is toward a nature-centric attitude. I remain hopeful, David, I'm not starry-eyed, but I remain hopeful that we are living at a different level of societal consciousness today than we were 40, 30, even 20 years ago. And I would love to see that there is an acceleration along the lines of what Philip spoke about. So I think from a financial sector, there's always, leaders, and there is always followers, but definitely you should rest assured that we would not cover anything that goes in the direction of ecocides. The industry today only covers sudden and accidental. But if we ever realize that there is a causality and an intentionality, even in the absence of a law, we would not want to cover activities that we know are intentionally harming the environment. So I will continue to wave that flag within the financial world, because I think it is, the law is fantastic when we'll get passed, but we should get going now, not wait until the law gets passed. And I can say that company, government, and everyone must compile with the right of Indigenous Peoples through the UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples and through FPEG, the Free, Pre-Or, and Informed Consent. That must guide all of you in order to really avoid the ecocide, because it's already happening, so we have to stop it to do not get more than where we are. I just wanted to come in very briefly just to say, I mean, we're already working in do with many Indigenous communities, but Veronica, there is a gap, and the corporate sector has not so far got involved. We had no one, I regretted this, from the corporate sector on our working group, or we had federal prosecutors and others. It would be terrific to work with you on this. Thank you.