Bianca Jagger: Since we can�t buy our planet back...

Environmental damage is emerging as the biggest threat to the survival of our planet. Companies that put people and the environment at risk, must be punished for their crimes

By Bianca Jagger

Published: Jun 2, 2010 09:38:22 AM IST

Updated: Jun 2, 2010 09:39:18 AM IST

Bianca Jagger was born Bianca Perez-Mora Macías in Managua, Nicaragua in 1950. She is a prominent international human rights and climate change advocate. She is the founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation , Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, and Trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust.

The first wife of Rolling Stones’ lead singer, Mick Jagger, Bianca has campaigned for human rights, social and economic justice and environmental protection throughout the world.

She is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “alternative Nobel prize”. She also received the World Achievement Award from Mikhail Gorbachev in January 2009.

The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) are advocating that The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction should be extended to cover crimes against future generations that are not already proscribed by the ICC’s Rome Statute as crimes against humanity, war crimes, or crimes of genocide. The definition of a crime against future generations asks that “Conduct which places the very survival of life at risk should be prohibited and prosecuted as an international crime.”

In the words of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987: “Future generations are disadvantaged…because they can inherit an impoverished quality of life. …their interests are often neglected in present socio-economic and political planning. They cannot plead or bargain for reciprocal treatment since they have no voice...”

Although the threats to our survival and that of our planet and environment have become increasingly dire, they continue to fall outside the scope of the international criminal justice system. In order to address them, we must recognise a new type of crime: That which is committed against future generations.

According to the CISDL, acts which constitute crimes against future generations are those which will have “severe consequences on the health, safety, or means of survival of future generations of humans, or of their threat to the survival of entire species or ecosystems.” As such, I would argue that climate change and acts which exacerbate it or accelerate its progress are the most urgent threat to our continued existence. If we do not address these issues boldly, decisively and immediately, our legacy to future generations will be a catastrophic one. This is, without question, a global issue; it calls for global action and solutions entrenched in an international legally binding framework.

During my three decades as a human rights and environmental advocate, I have taken part in countless campaigns against the reckless behaviour of oil, gas and mining companies. I have often referred to their actions as “crimes against future generations” and called for their accountability. I have chosen three of these examples as case studies.

Between 1971 and 1992, Texaco (now known as Chevron) embarked upon reckless oil exploration; it pumped 1.5 billion barrels of oil from Ecuador.

Texaco is responsible for the worst oil-related disaster in the history of Latin America, surpassing in scale the Exxon Valdez spill. When Texaco left Ecuador in 1992, it left behind some 1,000 unlined open toxic waste pits, some just a few feet from the homes of residents. Texaco dumped approximately 18.5 billion gallons of oil contaminated water into these pits, one-and-a-half times the amount spilled by the oil tanker Exxon Valdez. Texaco saved an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced by handling its toxic waste in Ecuador in ways that were illegal in its home country. But the cost is immeasurable.

Leeching from these pits contaminated the entire groundwater and ecosystem in one of the world’s most valuable rainforests. Thirty thousand people have no alternative but to drink, bathe, and cook with poisoned water.

I visited the province of Orellana and Sucumbíos in 2003. I met many residents afflicted with cancer, women experiencing spontaneous abortions, and children suffering from skin diseases as a consequence of bathing in toxic waters.

The Texaco disaster culminated in the largest environmental lawsuit in history, brought by 30,000 plaintiffs from the Ecuadorean Amazon. The case, dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl,” is in its final stages in Ecuador’s courts and a verdict is expected to be announced this year.

Companies whose practices put people and the environment at risk must be held accountable before an international court of law and must be punished for their crimes. We ought to be able to prosecute CEOs responsible for such crimes to the maximum extent possible under international law.

Recently I have been supporting and documenting the plight of the Kondh tribes in Orissa. Their survival is threatened by UK-based mining company, Vedanta Resources plc, which has proposed an open pit bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Mountain. If Vedanta’s project is allowed to go ahead, it will endanger the very survival of the Dongria Kondh, an already vulnerable indigenous tribe who have lived there for generations. To the Kondh, Niyamgiri Mountain is a sacred site. It is the source of food, culture, medicines and the seat of their god. The top of the hill, where the mine is planned, is not cultivated, but respected as a place of worship. The mine will cause irreversible damage to their ancestral home and way of life; it will displace and endanger the livelihoods and human rights of approximately 10,000 indigenous people.

The Wildlife Institute of India identifies the region as being of “great conservation significance”. The Niyamgiri Forest has been proposed as a wildlife sanctuary and the area has been included in a proposal for a new elephant reserve by the state of Orissa. The mining will have a severe impact on biodiversity and wildlife.

Last month I visited the Kondh in Orissa. The picture that emerged from the Kondh’s accounts depicted the modus operandi of Vedanta as one filled with human right violations, intimidation and manipulation of the law. The government of Orissa is contributing to endangering the survival of the Kondh, by continually favouring the interests of Vedanta, and ignoring laws that recognise tribal right in the Indian constitution. In collusion with the state authorities, Vedanta is using the local police to forcefully displace people and crush indigenous land rights movement.

My recent visit to the Kondh brought back memories of what I have witnessed in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among others. The struggle of tribal and indigenous people versus corporations and states, over ancestral land rich in natural resources, is not a new issue; nor is it unique to India.
As the Brundtland Report states, development must “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Companies who violate this fundamental right should be held accountable in a court of law.

The recent catastrophic oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico is another example of what could constitute a crime against future generations. On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a fire broke out onboard. The rig sank two days later causing an oil spill covering an area of at least 2,500 square miles.

The rig was owned and operated by Transocean Ltd. on behalf of BP, Britain’s biggest oil company. BP was running the well without a remote-control shut-off switch, a last-resort protection against underwater spills.

As the oil from the well site spreads, it’s wiping out thousands of species along the Gulf Coast, one of the world’s richest seafood grounds. Chris Frid, professor, marine biology, Liverpool University, has stated, “That part of the gulf’s coastline consists of a sedimentary shore with lots of muddy inlets. The oil will penetrate into the mud, and because it contains no oxygen the oil will not biodegrade. For generations, any disturbance of the sediment will bring oil back to the surface and that will happen over a very large area.”

President Obama has stated that he holds BP fully responsible. “BP will be paying the bill.”
It would be easy if we could just “pay a bill” to restore the natural habitats, ecosystems, fauna and flora that human activity has destroyed. The “bill” is immeasurable. We cannot buy our planet back. We must have a legally binding mechanism that prohibits companies from engaging in hazardous platform oil and natural gas drilling.

Crimes against future generations are crimes committed with knowledge of their severe consequences on the health, safety, or means of survival of future generations of humans, or of their threat to the survival of entire species or ecosystems.

Recognition of these acts as ‘crimes’ would give future generations a voice and, more importantly, actionable rights which they currently lack. Because of a lack of precise definition and legally binding mechanisms, the rights of future generations are currently not enforceable. I call for the recognition of crimes against future generations and for the jurisdiction of the ICC over those crimes. Let us not fail this ‘sacred trust.’

(This story appears in the 04 June, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)