OBJECTIVES AND PROPOSALS OF THE CAMPAIGN

Proposal-7

To achieve recognition of the harmful forms of prescribed burns as an ECOCIDE phenomenon. To achieve recognition of the phenomenon of ecocide as an international crime.

We aim to achieve recognition of the harmful forms of prescribed burning (i.e. the burning implemented inside natural lands with a frequency that exceeds the natural frequency of wildfires in this area or the period of time between wildfires that would occur in this area without human influence) as a phenomenon of ECOCIDE at the nationals and international levels.

Then, we will strive to achieve recognition of the phenomenon of ecocide as an international crime. For this, we intend to show a clear analogy between the entity of ecocide (which is illustrated by the harmful forms of prescribed burning) and the phenomenon of genocide, which was recognized as an international crime in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

REFERENCE. By analogy with the definition of the notion GENOCIDE, Ecocide can be defined as a form of collective action committed with the intention to completely or partially destroy any biological species of organisms or habitat for species of organisms. The United Nations has been recognized genocide as an international crime since 1948. What happens as a result of mass frequent prescribed burning within natural areas (which cause the destruction of grass cover, dry wood, plant litter and the top layer of soil by fire) fully corresponds to this definition of Ecocide. Other definitions of Ecocide, which also correspond to such types of prescribed burns, are given in the Appendix 1.

Currently, ecocide is recognized as a criminal offense only in 10 countries - Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. In 2010 and 2013, the attempts to give the concept of ecocide the status of international crime and a criminal offense in the United Nations and the European Union were made. Both attempts failed.

We consider it unacceptable for any purpose to allow the massive ecocide on vast natural areas, destruction of the functionality of natural ecosystems and reduction of the biodiversity of the planet, as well as other obvious negative consequences of vast frequent prescribed burnings! We will strive to achieve the condemnation of ecocide at the level of the United Nations, the European Union and national levels and recognition of ecocide as an international and criminal offense as it was done for the phenomenon of genocide in 1948.

Continuity. If this task of the campaign will be implemented, it will fulfill the civil initiative for the recognition of the concept of ecocide as a criminal offense in the European Union (European Citizens' Initiative), which was submitted in 2013 to the European Union; and the project of the environmental lawyer Polly Higgins who submitted a proposal to the United Nations in 2010 about recognition of the concept of ecocide as an international crime (Details .

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