From Environmental Rights to Criminal Accountability: Making Ecocide a Crime in Pakistan

Abstract

In the context of environmental constitutionalism, the most significant development is arguably that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is recognized as a fundamental right in Article 9A of our Constitution. However, constitutional recognition does not itself guarantee that the gravest ecological destruction is prevented, investigated or punished. The question of this article, if Pakistan should enact a separate domestic fleeing crime and, if yes, how that crime can be reconciled with current environmental legislation, constitutional guarantees including the right to a healthy environment, federalism and criminal-law principles. It utilizes doctrinal legal analysis through the lens of environmental constitutionalism and green criminology, to analyze relevant sections in the penal code (Pakistan Penal Code, 1860), the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997; Constitution Twenty-sixth Amendment; and Shehla Zia Vs. Pakistan has not been devoid of environmental crimes or corporate accountability, but the provisions are defined very narrowly (in terms of prohibited conduct), as well as fragmented in regulatory schemes, limited in their penal escalation and high on enforcement challenges. The article critically builds on the 2021 definition of ecocide by the Independent Expert Panel, and on comparative reforms to propose a circumscribed form of an offence for intentional or probably aware conduct that creates significant and durable harm to a wide or long-term natural environment. Individual and organisational liability, proportionate penalties, restoration orders, the need for independent investigation, guarantees on scientific evidence protections and federal–provincial coordination are recommended. It finishes with the conclusion that ecocide criminalisation could, but only in tandem with other elements of a more definitively institutionally credible environmental justice strategy, activate Article 9A.