By Lottie Limb, in EuroNews, November 12, 2021.
It’s hard to keep track of the calls for action coming out of Glasgow this week. But there’s no doubt that the most radical are not coming from the official COP26 venue, but the side events springing up around the city.
At one event organised by the COP26 Coalition on Sunday, environmentalists made the case for ‘ecocide’ to be a crime recognised in international law.
Lawyers and activists discussed the legal power to protect the natural world at the Glasgow Film Theatre, where minutes before the UN was found ‘guilty’ of failing to act on climate change by a People’s Tribunal.
Paul Powlesland, barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature, described the way the law moved from enshrining human rights in the twentieth century to protecting “fictional entities” like registered companies this century, completely ignoring non-human lives.
“You could create a company for £12 (€14) in this country and it would have more rights than a 100 year old yew tree or the River Clyde,” which flows through Glasgow, he said.
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Photo credit: “VIC32 AT GLASGOW RIVER FESTIVAL 009” by S McKechnie is licensed under CC BY 2.0