Proposed crime of ecocide can help save endangered pangolin from extinction

The illegal trafficking of pangolins must be recognised as a serious international crime to prevent mass extinction, according to new research.

The University of Essex’s Dr Matthew Gillett insists global enforcement of international law must be expanded and strengthened to ensure one of the most trafficked mammals in the world are better protected.

Pangolins, which are native to Africa and Asia, are hunted for their meat and scales and continue to be sold on the black market despite the existence of national criminal laws.

In a new paper published in the International Criminal Law Review, Dr Gillett is calling for trafficking animals to be considered a form of ecocide and for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to adopt ecocide as a crime that it can prosecute.

Dr Gillett, of Essex Law School, said: “The current rates of pangolin trafficking underscores the need for effective criminal action at international level.

“Pangolins play important roles in the ecosystem as they regulate insect populations, such as ants and termites which helps prevent the destruction of forests. Their burrows also support biodiversity by providing shelter to other species.

“Their extinction would constitute a grave form of environmental destruction and the severity of this would fit with existing definitions of ecocide.”

The crime of ecocide has been formally proposed by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa in a move that could see it included in the Rome Statute; a treaty granting the court worldwide jurisdiction over specific crimes.

This would, for the first time, dramatically increase the ICC’s legal tools to deploy against people committing wilful destruction of the environment.

Dr Gillett’s own work on environmental harm has helped shape the ICC’s draft policy on prosecuting attacks on nature.

In this respect, he says the fusing of ecology and law is crucial to ensuring the proposed law of ecocide can be implemented, with ecologists helping to provide data and evidence of the severity of harm caused, such as the current plight of pangolins.

He added: “While forensic challenges exist in investigating and prosecuting wildlife crime on an international scale, ecological data and methods can assist in enhancing the use of international criminal law to oppose their exploitation.

“For pangolins specifically, the use of science can assist in creating accurate evidence that demonstrates the severity and seriousness of trafficking.

“This includes the risk of extinction or endangerment, the likelihood of causation, and similar objective factors.”