Date: 3 November 2021
The Centre for Climate Crime and Justice at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London and the International State Crime Initiative hosted its first Inaugural Lecture with Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, School of Law, at Queen Mary University London Chair of Global Law at the School of Law, Yale Law School, LLB; Harvard Law School, SJD.
A presentation that celebrates the founding by Queen Mary of a Centre of Climate Crime and Justice at a time of growing concern about climate change and various forms of ecological instability. This Centre that is just getting started builds on the experience of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary, which has highlighted the role of government and the private sector in causing the deepening crisis of global warming, which already is responsible for a wide variety of serious societal and ecological harms.
The lecture focused on the evolution of support for criminalizing deliberate environmental destruction, and the current lively debate about how to delimit ‘ecocide’ drawing on the historical origins of ecological concern initially arising out of the use of Agent Orange as a weapon in the Vietnam War. The analysis drew on the personal experience of Professor Falk and the contributions of Polly Higgins and her legacy by way of the Stop Ecocide International Foundation. Emphasis was given how to best define ecocide to ensure practical applications that discourage, prevent, and take punitive action against a wide range of harmful activities, and why there is notable corporate and national security resistance to criminalizing ecocide despite the urgency of taking effective action.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, School of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. Falk is currently acting as interim Director of the Centre of Climate Crime and Justice at Queen Mary. He directs the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are Power Shift (2016); Revisiting the Vietnam War (2017); On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019); and On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019). He is the author or coauthor of other books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance (2001), Explorations at the Edge of Time (1993), Revolutionaries and Functionaries (1988), The Promise of World Order (1988), Indefensible Weapons (1983), A Study of Future Worlds (1975), and This Endangered Planet (1972). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published March 2021. He has been nominated annually for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2021.