Author: Michael Nicholson
In our monthly series, Window on Europe, we shine a light on the best policy ideas coming from the rest of continent, and look at the lessons for the United Kingdom. In this piece, IEEP UK’s Head of Policy Michael Nicholson takes a look at Belgium’s ecocide law. You can keep up to date with these articles and IEEP UK’s other work by subscribing to our monthly newsletter.
In 2026, Belgium can celebrate. It can celebrate because it has turned a rather mundane reform to the country’s penal code into something far more interesting. The reform has introduced the concept of ‘ecocide’ onto Belgium’s statute book and this brings with it the prospect of severe criminal penalties for serious damage caused to the environment. What lessons can the UK take from this and should the UK’s nations follow suit?
Defining ‘ecocide’ and its purported place in law
Reminiscent of the term ‘genocide,’ it was in 1972 at a landmark UN Conference in Stockholm where Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme spoke of “ecocide” in relation to the ongoing Vietnam war as, “The immense destruction brought about by indiscriminate bombing, by large scale use of bulldozers and herbicides”. Several academics and legal scholars have since further articulated wordings for ecocide (Professor Richard Falk, Professor Laurent Neyret and Polly Higgins).
An Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation, a leading charity and campaign group, defined it as:
“…unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.
The key elements of ecocide therefore are the concepts of deliberateness or a knowledge that one is committing a crime, the severity and widespread or long-lasting effects of those crimes.
Yet, some may still be a little confused. They might ask, “Aren’t there laws already to punish those that commit crimes against nature and the planet?” In short, yes, there are. But in essence, ecocide laws underscore and are reserved for the most damaging and most serious forms of environmental damage and call for more severe penalties, whether that be higher fines or longer jail sentences for those involved. These could be individuals and/or companies.
Passionate supporters of ecocide laws argue that the triple-threat planetary crisis provoked by human-induced climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution is so grave that only severe penalties will be able to ‘draw a moral as well as a legal red line… under the protection of the living world’ Stop Ecocide International.
As such, there is an argument that existing laws are not ‘tough enough’ to deal with the sorts of ‘severe’, ‘widespread’ and ‘long lasting’ damage envisaged by proponents of ecocide.
The UK, for example, has seen and experienced its own share of large-scale incidents that may have possibly fallen within such a scope, had there been such an ecocide law in place. One thinks of the industrial fire at Buncefield oil storage facility in Hertfordshire in 2005, the Sea Empress oil spill in Wales in 1996, the Braer oil spill in Shetland in 1993 and the Camelford (aluminium sulphate) water pollution incident in Cornwall in 1988. Indeed, some today might even consider pollution in the River Wye catchment or Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland to warrant being added to this list too.
Belgium: the EU’s ecocide trailblazer
Belgium’s ecocide law was passed in February 2024 and legally comes into effect in September 2026.
The crime of ecocide consists of deliberately committing, by action or omission, an unlawful act causing serious, widespread, and long-term damage to the environment, knowing that the act causes such damage, provided that the act constitutes an offense under federal law or an international instrument binding on the federal authority, or if the act cannot be located in Belgium.
[English translation of Article 94 of new Belgian criminal code]
It applies to environmental crimes that take place in the North Sea or in relation to nuclear waste management – both areas of competence within Belgium’s federal government. Penalties are severe too. The new law mandates that individuals can be put in jail for up to 20 years (and life imprisonment if it results in the death of someone) and companies fined up to €1.6 million. It also states that Belgian nationals committing acts of ecocide outside of Belgium can also be prosecuted – a significant development in itself. Courts in Belgium may use their discretion by imposing tougher or lighter sentences depending on aggravating or mitigating elements and order other ancillary penalties too, such as seizures and further monetary penalties based on profits associated with the crime.
Yet, Belgium’s efforts to put ecocide on its statute is not without its detractors. They claim that because most environmental crime is prosecuted at a sub-national level – in the Brussels Capital Region, Flanders, and Wallonia – that the federal ecocide law is too weak.
However, this misses the point. First, it is a start. Waiting for a perfect law, if that exists, will mean waiting for a long time. The Belgian ecocide law cannot be applied retroactively, so having the law on the statute book enables it to be used should need arise. Its introduction also provides confidence for other countries to press ahead with their own ecocide laws. Even if the law is used rarely, it makes an unequivocal statement that deliberate, long-lasting and widespread environmental damage will not be tolerated and will be punished with penalties commensurate to their seriousness. It complements existing efforts to tackle environmental crime being taken at the regional level in Belgium too.
A European context
The introduction of Belgium’s ecocide law comes at an interesting time. Several EU member states including France, Italy [1], Netherlands and Sweden have been taking steps towards passing ecocide laws for several years but never quite ‘made it over the line’.
However, a recent revision to the EU’s Environmental Crime Directive (ECD), which has many of the hallmarks of ecocide-type legislation, has altered the situation. EU Member States are legally obliged to transpose the ECD by the 21 May 2026 – in other words, write the ECD into each country’s national law. The ECD contains within it a ‘Qualified Criminal Offences’ clause which refers to widespread, substantial and long-lasting environmental damage – all key words linked to, and reminiscent of the ecocide conceptual framework. The ECD requires Member States to put in place stricter criminal penalties too.
Outside of the EU, inspiration can be sought from countries like Ukraine who already have an ecocide law in place, though arguably it is less well defined [2]: “Mass destruction of flora or fauna, poisoning of the atmosphere or water resources, as well as committing other actions that may cause an ecological disaster shall be punishable by imprisonment for a term of eight to fifteen years.” (Article 441, Ukrainian criminal code).
Closer to (IEEP UK’s) home, this moment is bittersweet for Scotland, who just last month came very close to passing a similar law only for parliamentary debate time to run out before the Holyrood elections. This was despite the bill’s sponsor, Monica Lennon MSP, receiving widespread, multi-party political support. Back bench bills have come and gone elsewhere in UK legislatures but in short, no such ‘ecocide’ law exists in the UK.
A distraction from tackling lesser environmental crimes?
Whilst Belgium can celebrate its landmark law and other nations take steps forward in tackling the more extreme cases of environmental crime, for some, ecocide laws are a distraction from the ‘nuts and bolts’ of tackling less serious but more persistent and numerous environmental crimes which arguably go undetected and unpunished or under-punished.
One might justifiably ask whether spending time and effort on legislating against relatively few numbers of rare, albeit highly damaging and serious, environmental crimes is the most effective and efficient use of parliamentary time. It is perhaps reasonable to argue that putting resources into detecting, deterring and where necessary punishing for offences that occur on a more ‘routine’ basis in neighbourhoods and local communities everywhere – whether that is for example fly-tipping or an illegal landfill dump or pollution to a watercourse – might be more sensible. Ask the nearby residents of recent evidence of environmental crime at Cave’s Inn Pits in Leicestershire, Kidlington in Oxfordshire, or on the River Spey in Moray.
Most people ‘see’ and experience small-scale pollution and environmental offences in their neighbourhoods and communities; they do not see or experience a fire at the scale of Buncefield or a Sea Empress spill all that often, if at all (though they may be impacted by it in other unseen or direct ways). It is arguable too that preventing (or punishing) relatively small-scale pollution in a local river or protecting a nature reserve is more democratic and could have wider benefits such as tackling voter apathy on environmental issues and restoring faith and trust in Government [3].
Ideally, pursuing both small, and large [ecocide] scale crimes is achievable. Ideally it would not be a trade-off – it would be complementary to existing efforts. And ideally, environmental crimes would be seen to be being dealt with swiftly and vigorously.
Conclusions
Though ecocide may have been borne out of damage to the environment from war, we sadly know from experience that widespread and long-lasting damage can also occur in peacetime too.
Belgium’s example is there for others to follow and build on. In the UK, we have to wait and see whether new draft Ecocide Bills re-appear in its legislatures. These laws would be valuable tools in the armoury in the fight against widespread, long-lasting and serious environmental crime, but it is important not to forget the blights of ‘everyday’ environmental damage being done that communities see and experience. Providing regulators and enforcement bodies with the tools, resources, political level support and confidence to tackle criminals and criminality against the environment should surely be key.
[1] A backbench parliamentary bill was proposed by the Greens and Left Alliance in 2024: https://ecojurisprudence.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/leg.19.pdl_.camera.1325.19PDL0047420.pdf
[2] Michael J. Kelly, War Crime or Ecocide? Ukraine’s Prosecution of Environmental Crimes Committed by Russian Forces, 40 Emory Int’l L. Rev. 3 (2025) https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol40/iss1/2
[3] The Office for National Statistics reported in November 2025 that only 51% of adults considered climate change important in 2025, down from 69% in 2023 and a UK Parliament briefing reported in May 2025 on declining trust in Parliament and Institutions as well as low levels of belief in the UK Government to handle environmental issues well.
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