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Book:"Eradicating Ecocide"
Polly Higgins' book "Eradicating Ecocide" has been entered for the People’s Book Prize. Please help out by voting for her book and then passing this information on! Thanks!
Date: 5/16/2011 7:07:28 PM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 9856 times "How wonderful would it be - if her book won? Not for her, but for all of us, and for THE EARTH.... I ask you to help make this happen...
A prize like this will help energize her proposal to have Ecocide made the 5th Crime Against Peace, just as we had to do with Genocide. Do you know that it is only a crime to destroy large tracts of the planet during war?
In peace-time there is no law against it, and so it is that the Earth is being destroyed at ever faster rate and level than before. The UN says we are at the tipping point...and her book shows how we can stop from going over the edge.
So, would you lend your shoulder to this wheel, at this moment, for us all? Please help us all take a different route from the one we are on, one that moves away from war to one of peace.
The voting mechanism is rather clunky. You have to become a member of People’s Book Prize first, so it will take you a couple more minutes (from reading thus far!) - but the big prize – eradicating ecocide - is surely worth it.
Click here to register: http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/register.php
Thanks so much in anticipation...and please do pass this on to your networks.
http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=599
About Eradicating Ecocide:
Polly Higgins, author of Eradicating Ecocide, barrister and international environmental lawyer proposed to the United Nations in April 2010 a law of Ecocide to be classed as an international law alongside Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes as a 5th Crime Against Peace. In 1948 the United Nations created the crime of Genocide in response to the mass killings which arose out of World War Two.
Now we have mass destruction of the planet. We have no adequate crime to address this injustice. Polly has proposed a definition of Ecocide as the mass 'damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.'
In 2008 3,000 corporations caused $2.2 trillion dollars of biodiversity ecocide; in 2009 the figure is $4 trillion. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and the destruction of our ecosystems is expected to be exponentially higher.
'Our ecosystems are at the tipping point' say the United Nations; world systems are at risk of 'rapid degeneration and collapse.' Polly argues that we need now more than ever to implement the crime of Ecocide to halt the march of destruction of our ecosystems and impose upon governments a legal duty of care to assist those suffering or at risk of non-ascertainable (climate change driven) ecocide.
Implementation of the crime of Ecocide would stem the flow of destruction at source and create a pre-emptive duty on corporate activity to prohibit the mass damage and destruction to ecosystems from the outset. In so doing the crime of Ecocide becomes a powerful preventative measure that would render those in a superior position of responsibility - CEO's, heads of state and heads of financial institutions - at risk of being prosecuted where they are responsible for taking decisions that lead to, support or finance mass damage and destruction.
By levying responsibility on persons, not legal fictional entities (the corporate body), successfully breaks the cycle of destruction and accrual of silent rights to destroy. In this way we can shift the protection of interests from those few who have ownership to the many who are at risk of suffering.
By legally defining Ecocide, we can also re-open the UN Trusteeship Council. In so doing, an international mechanism based on trusteeship principles can be activated to impose a legal duty of care for those communities adversely affected by ecocide.
This and more about how the UN can implement the crime of Ecocide is set out in Eradicating Ecocide: Laws and Governance to Prevent the Destruction of our Planet.
The book is a finalist for the Book of the Year (environment) and is a nominee for the People's Book Prize. It sets out in full the written proposal to the UN for Ecocide to be made the 5th Crime Against Peace.
For more information on the book, the proposal and about Polly see:
http://www.pollyhiggins.com/
http://www.thisisecocide.com/
Eradicating Ecocide: Laws and Governance to Prevent the Destruction of our Planet, published by Shepheard-Walwyn, London 2010.
Please vote for it here: http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=599
but be sure to register first here: http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/register.php
(Voting closes on the 31st of May)
Buy it online at http://www.thisisecocide.com
About Polly Higgins:
Polly has a track-history in creating the Earth laws we now need to change the course of history. In 2008 she proposed to the United Nations the need for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights, which Bolivia is now taking into the UN as the renamed Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was implemented at the same time as the crime of Genocide to protect the Human Right to Life, so now she is proposing the necessary crime of Ecocide to support the Earth Right to Life.
Polly has been a vocal spokesperson on Earth Jurisprudential matters for a number of years and is recognised as an expert in this field. She also loves the Earth and all who live here."
http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=599
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