The Environmental Protection Function Of The International Criminal Court

In the tide of international environmental campaign,the International Criminal Court also shows an intention to take part in international environmental affairs,which gives rise to public attentions and comments.This paper will discuss the environmental protection function of the International Criminal Court on the basis of such new development.This topic is brought forward in the context of global and grave environmental problems.In face of the serious situations,it is imperative that the ICC should be vested with environmental protection function to cope with environmental crisis,for several reasons.To begin with,the problem of poor enforcement,which troubles international environmental law since the day of its birth,requires for the assistance of the implementation mechanism of another branch of international law,i.e.international criminal law.Next,the shortages of the indirect implementation mechanism of international criminal law which mainly depends on the enforcement of domestic criminal law came to light in the new era.For instance,sometimes domestic courts may be unable or unwilling to try environmental cases.In these circumstances,the direct implementation mechanism of international criminal law will play a complementary role;at the same time demonstrate the determination of international community as a whole to protect the environment.Last but not least,it is difficult to set up a new international environmental criminal court or to amend the Rome Statute to include a new article for environmental crimes in the short run.Nevertheless,it can be more viable to interpret and apply the current articles in the Statue,making use of the existing ICC platform to combat environmental crimes.The idea of ICC's environmental protection function is not only necessary,but also of twofold feasibility.The first comes from the increasingly close interaction between the human rights field and the environment field.Human rights protection realized by the prosecution of the four core crimes may also indirectly have some positive environmental impacts.The second comes from the non-enclose nature of the Rome Statue system,which can be testified by Article 1 and article 21,leaving some space for the inclusion of crimes of new types.With the discussion above,chapter 2 to chapter 4 of this paper will combine the idea in the ICC policy papers and the Rome Statute system,focusing on how ICC's environmental protection function can be realized in the current mechanism.According to the Office of The Prosecutor,it “will give particular consideration to prosecuting Rome Statute crimes that are committed by means of,or that result in,inter alia,the destruction of the environment”.Thus,it is indicated that besides the only existing article,Article 8(2)(b)(iv),which explicitly deems environmental destruction as a crime,the ICC can also apply other articles and indirectly render its prosecution environment-friendly.Among all articles,it is notable that one is of specialty.Article 7(1)(k),the only miscellaneous article in the Rome Statute,which is more flexible and allows more space for interpretation,is therefore selected out for separate discussion.Consequently,there are three ways to realize the environmental protection function of the ICC.First,through the transition from a human rights perspective to an environmental perspective,it is noticeable that although the only existing environment-related Article 8(2)(b)(iv)belongs to war crime articles,ICC's application of this article can also have environmental protection effects to certain extent.Therefore,it is regarded as the first way to realize ICC's environmental protection function.Second,the nowaday world has witnessed an increasing number of core crimes with growing environmental factors in their elements of crimes;besides,the rules of treaty interpretation also supports a broader explanation for these core crimes in the contemporary era.Therefore,according to the Al Capone Strategy,the prosecution of Rome Statute crimes with environmental elements can be the second way for the realization of ICC environmental protection function.Third,ICC might also include environmental destruction as “other inhumane crime” of crime against humanity.This could be the third way to realize ICC's environmental protection function.For these three ways,chapter 2 to chapter 4 respectively discuss their statute basis,explanation of the idea and feasibility,international practice(or related attempts),positivity and negativity.