Economic, Social & Environmental Crimes

Sustainable development calls for a balance among economic development, social development and environmental protection, its interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars. Over the past two decades, the international community has focused on building and reinforcing these pillars through the development of principles, practices and initiatives aimed at advancing global prosperity. While these efforts have achieved significant increases in living standards and restoring ecological integrity in some regions, gross violations of economic, social and cultural rights, and massive environmental degradation remain common in much of the world.

These violations strike at the very foundations of the pillars of sustainable development, denying populations the basic levels of livelihoods, education, nutrition, water, shelter, health, physical safety, and ecosystems services that are necessary precursors for their rise out of squalor and poverty. Importantly, these violations are not always the result of a lack of resources or of structural factors, but are in some cases the product of behaviour by individuals that is sufficiently deliberate and morally opprobrious to be condemned as criminal by the international community. Powerful interests continue to operate in a system that does not penalise them for making conscious decisions for economic or political gain to destroy freshwater sources and critical ecosystems, embezzle state resources for personal gain, force children into dangerous working conditions, and deny access to food, shelter, medical care, education and cultural practices in a discriminatory manner. Vulnerable populations have little recourse to protect their essential means of livelihood and development other than petitioning to often unresponsive governments for regulation or undertaking lengthy, complicated and costly civil proceedings.

Critical accountability gaps exist in international law to condemn, punish, and deter serious violations of international economic, social, cultural rights and international environmental law. This is in sharp contrast with the emerging system of international criminal justice, which commits states to holding individuals accountable through domestic prosecutions and international criminal tribunals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – crimes that focus mainly on violations of political and civil rights and acts committed during wars or large-scale and widespread attacks. This selective focus arises from the historical development of international criminal law, but it makes little sense in light of the principle of the universality, indivisibility, and interdependence of all human rights and the widespread, severe and long-term consequences of economic, social and environmental crimes for populations.

The One Justice Project will work with a broad range of civil society partners to develop a consensus declaration on economic, social, and environmental crimes with a view to moving beyond the rhetoric of governance gaps to the powerful language of crime, accountability, and justice and ending impunity for serious violations of economic, social and cultural rights and international environmental law.

For more information about the concept of economic, social, and environmental crimes, please e-mail Yolanda Saito at yolanda.saito[a]onejusticeproject.org