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Vol - 9 (Especial Climate Change Criminology,2024)

Coordinado por Esteban Morelle Hungría
Equipo editorial: Nigel South, Ascensión García Ruiz y Gema Varona
Composite Critical Criminology & Collective Stewardship (Khalifa): a theoretical exploration of preventing environmental crimes in Malaysia.

Muzammil Quraishi

Artículo

Abstract

This paper identifies and interrogates a novel theoretical lens to address environmental ‘crime’ understood as a ‘composite critical criminological’ approach (Quraishi, 2020:90) incorporating three main conceptual strands: 1)Evaluating pertinent scholarship under the umbrella of zemiology and its addressing of social harms and the holistic approach to crime (Tombs, 2018); 2)Ultra Realist (UR) scholarship, particularly the notion of ‘special privilege’ (Winlow & Hall, 2016; Boukli & Kotzé, 2018) and Islamic Critical Realism (ICR) (Wilkinson, 2015; 2019); 3)Eco-theology and collective stewardship, the relationships and duties between individuals, states and corporations and scholars to prevent environmental harm with specific attention to the Islamic theological concept of Khalifa and the broader lens of eco-theology (Haleem, 2001)

The discussion and analyses are presented via a case study of Malaysia which represents a nation in the Global South with a pluralistic legal system experiencing significant environmental degradation against ambitious policies to counter the same. The case study examines a range of environmental harms, including those from petrochemical production and conspicuous consumption, whilst also advocating for the serious utilisation of an active Malaysian Islamic jurisprudence. Having set out a conceptual stall, the paper links this to a suggested model for future empirical work in this field. The model seeks to identify how social harm caused by environmental ‘crime’ is understood and articulated by three groups (often with different vested interests) to identify priorities for collective environmental stewardship

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Keywords

Collective Stewardship, Zemiology, Ultra Realism, Islamic Critical Realism, Eco-Theology, Malaysia.

Aplicación de la ley forestal frente al cambio climático. Un análisis criminológico verde en el contexto Mexicano (periodo 2009-2020)

Jesús Ignacio Castro Salazar1 y José Luis Carpio Domínguez

Artículo

Resumen

Los ecosistemas forestales tienen la capacidad de disminuir el efecto invernadero y en consecuencia aportan a la mitigación del cambio climático. Este estudio tiene como objetivo analizar la capacidad de aplicación de ley forestal en México del 2009 al 2020 y cómo esta genera puntos críticos que favorecen a los crímenes y delitos forestales. Entre los resultados se destaca que la legislación forestal se enfoca más en regular el comercio que la protección, mientras que la conservación forestal y la demanda de inspección sobrepasan la capacidad institucional de aplicación de la ley. Además, no existe una relación entre la demanda de inspección de actividades forestales y el número de agencias, inspectores y la ubicación de las oficinas institucionales. Se concluye que para hacer frente al cambio climático desde el contexto forestal mexicano es necesario mejorar los procesos jurídicos en materia forestal y contar con mayor capacidad institucional en estados con zonas forestales con más actividades forestales, puntos transfronterizos y número de autorizaciones, sin descuidar los posibles puntos ilegales.

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Palabras claves
Gestión forestal, legislación forestal, aplicación de la ley, autoridad forestal, criminología verde

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Outdoors with corporations and public administrations accountable for environmental and animal harm: Trusting Pandora to change climate change.

Gema Varona Martínez

Artículo

Abstract

Within the theoretical intersection between green criminology, white-collar criminality, restorative justice, and corporate organizational culture studies, it is argued that informal social control in relation to the needs of companies to prevent and respond to environmental harms has to do with the notions of self-control effectiveness and corporate self-government. These are linked to the concepts of reputational, legal, and financial fear, as well as those of risk management and predatory capitalism. As part of an alternative approach, restorative justice can enable a social learning of the common good in accountability that transcends the mere symbolism of social responsibility. Applying the framework of multiple streams, this analytical article suggests that, to favor restorative compliance in this area, normative foundation (hard and soft law) can be found, mainly at the level of the United Nations and the European Union. These norms must be brought into conversation with the theoretical frameworks of ecological injustice and interspecies injustice to avoid the risk of impunity, related to restorative justice.

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Keywords
corporate social responsibility, restorative justice, due diligence, climate change

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El delito de ecocidio en el ámbito internacional, ¿un debate desenfocado?

Antonio Fernández-Hernández

Artículo

Resumen

La ineficacia de los sistemas jurídicos estatales en la protección del medio ambiente es hoy día evidente. Especialmente en lo que a los casos más graves se refiere. A fin de poner remedio a la impunidad ambiental han surgido diversas propuestas de un quinto delito internacional: el ecocidio. Su configuración y sistema de enjuiciamiento son objeto de debate en la actualidad y, pese a los esfuerzos desarrollados hasta el momento, se encuentran todavía necesitados de un mayor desarrollo teórico y de acuerdo político. Sin embargo, en tanto no se establezcan mecanismos que garanticen que el Derecho internacional es, en todo caso, vinculante para los Estados, aunque la tipificación del delito ecocidio puede considerarse un paso en la dirección correcta, su eficacia será, lamentablemente, limitada, dada la actual necesidad de que los Estados consientan sujetarse al mismo.

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Palabras claves

ecocidio, derecho internacional del medio ambiente, delito medioambiental internacional, seguridad nacional.

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On the world-picture: a cross-disciplinary analysis of astronoetics and astro-green criminology

Reece Burns & Jack Lampkin

Artículo

Abstract

In 1968, humanity marked the beginning of the Earthrise era, capturing – for the first time – the pictorial sight of our planet in its cosmic position. The result enabled a newfound immense depth to the discourse of globalisation, and, more centrally, the practical and extraordinary power of the world-image. The concept of the world-picture, which is the equivalent of the German phrase Weltbild as developed by Hans Blumenberg, Martin Heidegger, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Martin Buber, is concerned with the world as a system of representation that is infused with the practical power of pictorial realities and the connection to a complex nexus of existential significance. This article illustrates an extension to this concept by utilising Blumenberg’s field of Astronoetics, which examines the theoretical intricate balance between centrifugal curiosity and centripetal care and its implications for terrestrial human welfare and extraterrestrial voyages. This article also examines how astronoetics can inform and enrich the recently formed subdiscipline of Astro-Green Criminology, which investigates the criminal and harmfulness of human agency towards outer space. The article concludes by arguing the value of reigniting the astronoetic tradition as a catalyst for change and a conceptual tool to confront illegal and harmful outer-space activities. The article finalises by inviting green criminologists to embrace astronoetics as an innovative, creative, and insightful approach that disentangles the complexities of our phenomenological meaning of outer-space – the fundamental source from which the multitude of cosmic transgressions originate.

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Keywords

Space Criminology, Astro-Green Criminology, Astronoetics, Phenomenology.

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​Digital destruction: examining the sociological tensions hindering the regulation of Bitcoin

Tom Redshaw

Artículo

Abstract

Bitcoin is an ecological disaster. In 2017, the Bitcoin network used the same amount of energy per year as Uruguay, when its total number of users worldwide was estimated to stand at 3.4million (Hileman and Rauchs, 2017: 99). By 2021 this number had risen to 101million, and estimates indicated the energy required to power the Bitcoin network equated to that required by all other data centres around the world combined (Blandin et al, 2020; de Vries, 2021). Moreover, Bitcoin’s growing carbon footprint shows little signs of abating in spite of significant measures to limit its usage (de Vries et al, 2022). Within the context of a global energy crisis and the broader climate emergency, regulators from Beijing to New York are increasingly considering actions that will restrict the use of the energy-intensive equipment required to power cryptocurrency networks. This article seeks to contribute to Green Criminology scholarship and inform regulatory efforts by (1) outlining the trade-off made in the design process for cryptocurrencies that lies at the root of the problem; (2) emphasising the urgency of this issue via an extensive review of existing studies; and (3) drawing on the constructivist approach in studies of science and technology to highlight and examine the sociological tensions that may hinder regulatory efforts. In short, sustainable pathways of cryptocurrency development demonstrably do exist yet they present significant challenges to what many in the cryptocurrency industry hold to be the raison d’etre of, in particular, Bitcoin

Keywords

Bitcoin; Science and Technology Studies; Actor-Network Theory; Technological Frames

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The ecocide-genocide nexus: for a ‘logics of destruction approach’ which definitely overcomes liberal definitional legalism and its deceptive bearing on ecocide-genocide prevention

Carlos Frade

Artículo

Abstract

This article is an intervention in a growing scholarly literature and debate on ecocide, genocide and their nexus aimed as much at the teaching of these issues as at their study and research. The context for this debate is what the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (TPP) has aptly called ‘the most persistent war of our time, and the most difficult to win’: a war which ‘is being waged against nature and the “peoples of nature” by large corporations supported by states and the minority who run them’. The article argues that despite indisputable advances, yet the genocide-ecocide literature still suffers from the same grave flaws that have been at the basis of the disastrous failure of the genocide field (both scholarly and legal-institutional) to give absolute priority to genocide prevention. Many of those flaws lay in the reliance on a legalistic rationality to produce definitions of genocide. The article outlines a very different perspective which, contrary to liberal definitionalism, will be attentive to ecocidal-genocidal processes, logics and structures – a perspective that I name, in the wake of existing scholarship, ‘logics of destruction approach’. An examination of a few ongoing ecocides-genocides which exposes the common logics of destruction underpinning each case will show the workings of this perspective. The article concludes with a reflection on the question of justice, true justice, and how it interpellates us, scholars and teachers, and indeed everyone, now that ‘the most persistent war of our time, and the most difficult to win’ is at its peak and the planet and its denizens risk destruction and extinction.

Keywords

Territory, Non-anthropologising perspective, Logics of destruction. Colonialism, Capitalist expansion.

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Arctic Climate Change Criminology (AC3): transgression of Arctic planetary boundaries as a white ecocide

Esteban Morelle-Hungría

Artículo

Abstract

The planet has finite limits, which have been determined and quantified by scientific enquiry. Consequently, it has been demonstrated that the modification and contravention of these limits can result in consequences that are irreversible. The damage to the environment caused by human activities has continued to increase over the last centuries. As a consequence of these anthropogenic pressures, six of the nine planetary boundaries have now been exceeded. Despite the efforts of some states to implement preventive measures, we are witnessing increasing levels of anthropogenic pressure in areas of particular and vital importance, such as the Arctic. International law has addressed some of these problems with sectoral or territorial mechanisms to deal with environmental damage, but these have proved ineffective. This paper addresses the construction of a monitoring and sanctioning framework from the perspective of international criminal law, with a rigorous analysis of the importance of this ecosystem to the planet. It proposes a new configuration of a crime of great ecological magnitude, namely White Ecocide, which has the potential to unleash consequences on a planetary scale.

Keywords

Planetary boundaries, White ecocide, Arctic, Climate change, Green criminology

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Editorial: An Increasingly Warmer, Unfairly Structured and Environmentally Interdependent Planet

Ascensión García Ruiz, Niguel South & Gema Varona

Editorial

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