Following the World Conference "Towards a Universal Economy Based on Human Rights" held in Assisi from October 16 to 18, 2025, organized by the UNESCO Chair in Economic Systems and Human Rights at the National University of La Plata, which featured over 30 speakers from around the world, the Global Campaign to Declare Ecocide a Crime Against Humanity is launched.Environmental crime is a global criminal activity that includes trafficking in protected species, pollution, logging, and toxic waste trafficking.

Environmental crime has an estimated financial impact of between $110 billion and $281 billion annually and is expanding at a rate of 5–7% annually, ranking as the third largest criminal activity in the world, after drug trafficking and counterfeiting.

Ecocide is a subtly destructive act aimed at the annihilation of vital ecosystems, defined as areas where plants, animals, organisms, atmospheric conditions, and landscapes interact harmoniously. This includes unlawful or even merely arbitrary actions carried out by individuals, states, associations, or other entities with the knowledge and intent to disrupt or destroy an entire ecosystem.

We must act urgently to stop this crime, which threatens not only our planet but also the future of future generations. Numerous international reports have clarified how the destruction of ecosystems has devastating consequences for biodiversity and human well-being, impacting our ability to guarantee fundamental human rights such as access to safe and sustainable natural resources.

It is essential that the international community unite to recognize ecocide as a crime against humanity, thus ensuring that those who seriously harm the environment are prosecuted and punished. We call for ecocide to be included in international law, so that it is treated with the same gravity as crimes such as genocide and war crimes, which threaten the peace of peoples.

We invite all those who want to protect our planet to support this cause and sign this petition. Only together can we make a difference. Sign the petition to recognize ecocide as a crime against humanity with the following preliminary text.

“Whoever carries out, including States, legal persons or associations, any of the following unlawful or arbitrary acts, with the knowledge and intention of disturbing or destroying, in whole or in part, an ecosystem, understood as a geographical area in which plants, animals and organisms, as well as atmospheric conditions and the landscape interact, foreseeing, even if only and solely, the high probability of causing serious, widespread and irreparable damage, as not repairable through natural recovery within a reasonable period of time, thus affecting the safety of the ecosystem itself and, above all, harming and/or endangering the life and health of people who could be affected, in violation of fundamental human rights such as:

(a) the use of weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, bacteriological, chemical or of any other type or kind;

b) the use of chemical herbicides to defoliate and clear natural forests for military, industrial or profit-making purposes;

(c) the use of bombs, missiles, drones and artillery in quantities, densities or sizes that compromise soil quality or increase the possibility of diseases dangerous to humans, animals and crops;

d) the use of 'buldozing' equipment to destroy large tracts of forest for any purpose, including agricultural;

(e) the use of techniques designed to increase or decrease rainfall or otherwise modify the climate as a weapon of war or to displace entire populations or ethnic groups for the purpose of genocide by starving them and thus modifying or eliminating the agricultural productivity of the land and ecosystem concerned;

(f) the removal of human beings or animals from their habitual places of birth and residence in order to accelerate the pursuit of military or profit-making objectives;

g ) the massive and irreversible pollution of the atmosphere, soil and subsoil (so-called “filling”), of the sea, rivers, lakes (so-called “dumping”), with any kind of toxic and/or radioactive waste or material (especially “high activity”, so-called “long-lived”, category I, as defined in art. 4 of Legislative Decree 17.3.1995, no. 230, without excluding categories II and III), for military or industrial or speculative purposes and/or objectives typical of organised crime (so-called “ecomafia”).

Unless the act constitutes a more serious crime, the following is punishable: 1) by not less than 12 years and not more than 20 years for the danger caused to the ecosystem with the knowledge of a substantial probability of causing serious, widespread, and long-lasting damage to the environment and, therefore, serious impacts on human life, the natural, cultural, or economic resources of the affected communities; 2) by life imprisonment, only in the event of the death of one or more persons, as a direct consequence of one or more of the unlawful and arbitrary conduct described above; or by a sentence of 10 to 20 years of imprisonment, in the event of serious or very serious personal injury caused and suffered by one or more exposed and affected persons.

Firma la petizione in italiano https://c.org/WHndZSyKY2

Firma la petición en Español https://c.org/d4K5LL8pBC