In another session of the Ronda Amazónica Talk Series, Professor Ignacio Berdugo Gómez de la Torre will give a talk titled ‘Protecting the Amazon: A Challenge for International Criminal Law’.
The size of the Amazon, its extension over nine different countries, its biological diversity, its indigenous peoples and their special relationship with nature, constitute a necessary starting point for any political and legal reflection on the future, on preserving it, colliding with the frequent excessive exploitation of its natural resources. An exploitation that represents a global risk that transcends national borders.
Considering the recourse to criminal law in the face of global risks leads us to the domain of International Criminal Law, which requires us to face the difficulties posed in this context by the target of protection, the environment, the difficulty of measuring its possible damage, an anthropocentric or ecocentric approach, the application of administrative law etc.
It is within this general framework that a new international crime, the ecocide, proposed by part of the criminal doctrine, must be considered, which requires a particularly complex debate on its content and its enforcement, as it raises problems both of authorship and of not only the nature of the penalties but also of the need to deal with restorative justice.
The talk will be held in Spanish.