On Friday 30 September the crime of ‘ecocide’ was tested in court for the first time.  Ecocide, the environmental equivalent of genocide, could become the 5th International Crime Against Peace alongside Genocide itself, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes, if environmental lawyer, Polly Higgins, is successful in her bid to see heads of states and directors of corporations forced to take individual and personal responsibility for their actions.

Whilst this first hearing, at the Supreme Court in London, was a mock trial, it could not have got any closer to the real thing without having bailiffs to take the convicted chief executives into custody after 2 guilty verdicts were handed down. The trial was conducted (as much as was possible in one day) in accordance with normal legal practice and the case was prosecuted by eminent QC Michael Mansfield (who, amongst other high profile cases, has acted for the families of Stephen Lawrence and Jean Charles de Menezes). Rathbone Greenbank was proud to sponsor the event which could mark the beginning of a new dawn for corporate responsibility for the environment.

The trial was centred around two ‘fictitious’ cases:  an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the development of tar sands in Alberta, and it raised some interesting questions around the way such a law could be framed to best target the worst corporate exploitation of the environment.  In particular it highlighted the problem of proving direct liability. Whilst the chief executive of the company responsible for the Gulf of Mexico disaster was found not guilty of responsibility for causing excessive destruction (defined through measures of size, duration, and impact) he, and a fellow CEO of another company were both found guilty in relation to tar sands in Alberta.  The specific concern here was the impact on birds from toxic tailings ponds many square kilometres in scale, which have resulted from tar sands development.  In one single incident it is estimated that 1600 birds died having landed on such a ‘pond’.

Interestingly, the mock trial demonstrated the way that socially responsible investment combined with legal expertise has been able to raise the agenda of environmental damage to new levels. The trial was covered by a number of national newspapers including the Financial Times, highlighting that the significance of such a law being passed has not gone unnoticed. Polly Higgins will be taking her proposal to the UN in January 2012 to see if Ecocide can be ratified into international law and with these ‘convictions’ behind her and the support of investors, like the clients we represent at Rathbone Greenbank, corporate responsibility could be taken to a new level.