Ecocide, genocide, capitalism and colonialism: Consequences for indigenous peoples and glocal ecosystems environments
| Author | Martin Crook,Damien Short,Nigel South |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480618787176 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618787176
Theoretical Criminology
2018, Vol. 22(3) 298 –317
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480618787176
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Ecocide, genocide, capitalism
and colonialism: Consequences
for indigenous peoples
and glocal ecosystems
environments
Martin Crook
University of London, UK
Damien Short
University of London, UK
Nigel South
University of Essex, UK
Abstract
Continuing injustices and denial of rights of indigenous peoples are part of the long
legacy of colonialism. Parallel processes of exploitation and injustice can be identified in
relation to non-human species and/or aspects of the natural environment. International
law can address some extreme examples of the crimes and harms of colonialism through
the idea and legal definition of genocide, but the intimately related notion of ecocide that
applies to nature and the environment is not yet formally accepted within the body of
international law. In the context of this special issue reflecting on the development of
green criminology, the article argues that the concept of ecocide provides a powerful
tool. To illustrate this, the article explores connections between ecocide, genocide,
capitalism and colonialism and discusses impacts on indigenous peoples and on local and
global (glocal) ecosystems.
Corresponding author:
Nigel South, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: soutn@essex.ac.uk
787176TCR0010.1177/1362480618787176Theoretical CriminologyCrook et al.
research-article2018
Article
Crook et al. 299
Keywords
Colonialism, ecocide, ecosystems, genocide, indigenous peoples
Introduction
Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature.
For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.
(Engels, 1964: 183)
Man has consciously and unconsciously inflicted irreparable damage to the environment in
times of war and peace.
(Draft Ecocide Convention 1973, cited in Falk, 1973: 93)
In the past few decades, there has been growing recognition of the long legacy of
colonialism in the form of injustices and denial of rights affecting indigenous peo-
ples. At the same time, there has been a more slowly developing articulation of the
case for rights to be attributed to non-human species and/or aspects of the natural
environment (Berry, 1999; Cullinan, 2011; Sollund, 2012). International law can
address some extreme examples of the crimes of colonialism through the idea and
legal definition of genocide (which, in its original formulation by Raphael Lemkin,
reflected a legal and moral critique of colonialism, discussed further below). The
intimately related notion of ecocide, however, is not yet formally accepted as a
legally defined term within the body of international law (the Rome Statute referring
only to widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment within
the context of war).
Butt (2013) (quoted in Dunlap, 2018: 553) identifies three
primary characteristics of colonialism: (1) the external domination of one people by another;
(2) the imposition of colonial ‘culture and customs onto the colonized’; and (3) the exploitation
of the colonized (e.g. slavery, natural resource extraction and ‘misappropriation of cultural
property’).
Domination, imposition and exploitation occur in various ways and can result in what
Crook and Short (2014) call ‘ecologically induced genocide’. Amplifying this point,
Dunlap (2018: 557) argues that it is important to recognize the ‘relationship and insepa-
rability of Indigenous people and their land’. The ways in which ‘ecologically destruc-
tive interventions’—for example, killing or destroying animals, fish, crops—are
experienced may ‘undermine the life, existence and resistance of indigenous popula-
tions’ and can be identified as an example of ‘textbook counterinsurgency “starvation”
tactics’ that may form a ‘part of a larger extermination strategy’ (Dunlap, 2018: 557). As
argued here, the theft of nature, the over-exploitation of land and water (Brisman and
South, 2016; Goyes et al., 2017), and the desecration of connections between people,
their cultures and their lands (Samson, 2003), can all have ecocidal and genocidal
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