Professor Steven Freeland discusses the environment as history’s silent victim of human conflict. He asks his audience to consider how proper modes of accountability can be incorporated into the mechanisms of international justice and how would “crimes against the environment” be determined. Freeland calls for “crimes against the environment’ to be incorporated as a separate crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Steven Freeland is a Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Vienna, Permanent Visiting Professor of the iCourts Centre of Excellence for International Courts, Denmark, a Member of Faculty of the London Institute of Space Policy and law, and was a Marie Curie Fellow in 2013-14. He has been a Special Advisor to the Danish Foreign Ministry and a Visiting Professional within the Appeals Chamber at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and has authored over 300 publications. Professor Freeland’s most recent book is Addressing the Intentional Destruction of the Environment during Warfare under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.