Climate Narratives: The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act

'The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act' includes a new legal framework for climate justice applied to climate crimes allegedly committed by Unilever, ING, Airbus and the Dutch state.

With contributions from: Radha D'Souza, Daphina Misiedjan, Linda Steg, Jonas Staal, Hicham Khalidi and Liesbeth Bik.

The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act

Our current legal system fails to prosecute transnational corporations and states as climate criminals, despite their ecocidal impact. 'The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act', developed by Indian lawyer, academic and researcher Radha D'Souza and artist Jonas Staal, includes a new legal framework for climate justice applied to climate crimes allegedly committed by Unilever, ING, Airbus and the Dutch state .

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC)

In 2021, D'Souza and Staal inaugurated their Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) in Framer Framed, Amsterdam. In this alternative climate tribunal, they organized public hearings where judges, prosecutors, and witnesses presented evidence of climate crimes committed by transnational corporations and states.

The leading legal document of this climate tribunal is The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act, authored by D'Souza. Instead of focusing on 'rights', this document focuses on mutual dependence: if one harms a river, one harms not only the life of the river itself, but that of all people, animals and plants that live in it. living in mutual dependence with the river. Rights are therefore never individual or reducible to private property: they are mutually dependent and intergenerational.

Introducing the guiding principles 

During this meeting, the guiding principles of The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act will be introduced, followed by the reading of the judgment regarding the case brought in the CICC against the Dutch state. Invited speakers will respond to this alternative legal framework, and discuss the challenges of establishing new transformative legal imaginaries amid the sixth mass extinction.

Program

• Welcome and introduction by Radha D'Souza (University of Westminster, UK) and Jonas Staal (visual artist) 
• Public lecture Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act Statements in the case against the Dutch State 
• Response Daphina Misiedjan (ISS / Erasmus University Rotterdam) 
• Response Linda Steg (University of Groningen)
• Discussion led by Hicham Khalidi (Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht)
• Last response by Liesbeth Bik (chairman of the Society of Arts) and Framer Framed
• Closing statement by Radha D'Souza

Series: Climate Narratives 

The meeting was put together by the Society of Arts in collaboration with Jonas Staal and Framer Framed, Amsterdam at the invitation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for the monthly webinar series Climate from All Sides.

The meeting is also the kick-off of the Society of Arts Climate Narratives; a series of meetings that will take place from September 2022. In the Climate Narratives, members of the Soceity of Arts highlight (aspects of) the climate crisis from their artistic practice to create new representations of the climate issue.