Rauxloh, Regina --- "The Role of International Criminal Law in Environmental Protection" [2011] ELECD 414; in Botchway, N. Francis (ed), "Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development

Editor(s): Botchway, N. Francis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446793

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The Role of International Criminal Law in Environmental Protection

Author(s): Rauxloh, Regina

Number of pages: 39

Extract:

13. The role of international criminal
law in environmental protection
Regina Rauxloh

They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental
resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting
those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation,
but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from
future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn
us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We
act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote;
they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.1



1 INTRODUCTION

Industrialisation of the world has transformed the traditional understand-
ing of the relationship between human beings and nature. The conventional
worship, or at least respect for the sanctity, of the Earth2 has been replaced
by a notion that nature's sole function is to provide human beings with
unlimited resources for survival and economic expansion. Every modern
global economic system is based on the concept of growth without allow-
ing for the simple fact that the riches of the planet are limited.3 Thus every
industrialised state has an inexhaustible demand for natural resources,
which causes unsustainable pollution of air, water and soil, deforestation,
desertification,4 land degradation, depletion of non-renewable resources,
loss of biodiversity and long-term damage to ecosystems. It will not be
terrorism, religious wars or a financial crisis ...