WEAll January Talk – Ecocide Law for an Economy within Planetary Boundaries

Some of our economic activity is now beyond Nature’s carrying capacity. Current environmental laws, policies and agreements are inadequate to keep activities within safe bounds and the resulting climate change, extreme weather, biodiversity loss, livelihood crises, natural resource crises are now visible across the globe. There is a gap in our legal order. Something more is needed. 

Adding a fifth crime – ecocide – to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in the Hague is an indispensable part of closing this gap. This will make mass destruction of the environment an international crime. In their new report, Jonas Roupé and Kristín Vala Ragnarsdottír throw light on how international ecocide law will help redirect our economy towards the circular and regenerative.

Join us on January 26, 2023 at 4 p.m. UTC to find out more.

Speakers:

Jonas Roupé has worked with business renewal and sustainability issues since 1995, and with recycling and the circular economy since 2013. As the founder of the Swedish advisory firm Insiktsbolaget, Jonas works nationally and internationally as an advisor and consultant. Jonas holds an MSc in business administration, a BSc in political science and degrees in engineering and psychology. He has held positions as head of Strategy, Business Intelligence, Head of Business Development, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer with companies like Ericsson, TeliaSonera and Skanova, and is an experienced board member. He is and has been advising privately owned companies, stock traded companies, government
owned companies, trade organisations and NGOs.

Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir is professor of Earth Sciences at the Faculty of- and Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland. She was the first woman to be a full professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK and at the same time the first woman to become a full professor in the Science Faculty there. She was also the first woman to serve as Dean of a School at the University of Iceland. Kristín Vala is a member of Academia Europaea, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Icelandic Academy of Science. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, distinguished fellow of the Schumacher Institute, and a member of and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She is a member of the sustainability think tanks the Balaton Group and the Club of Rome.

Richard J Rogers worked as a barrister in London, an attorney in San Francisco, and a senior United Nations lawyer at several UN war crimes tribunals. Richard has particular expertise in the cross-section between international criminal law and mass environmental destruction, and testified to this issue before the US Congress. He is a founding partner of Global Diligence LLP, an international legal advisory firm specialising in international crime and human rights, and Executive Director of Climate Counsel, a non-profit that pursues environmental justice through international criminal law. Richard is on the advisory board of the Stop Ecocide Campaign and a Trustee of Sophia Point Rainforest Research Centre (Guyana). He has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, America and Europe. Richard was Deputy Co-Chair of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide, that released the proposed definition on 22 June 2021.

Moderator: Stewart Wallis, co-founder and Executive Chair at WEAll.