24 June 2025 I 18:00 (CEST)
Ecocide: Harm, Responsibility & Lived Realities
With Luke Johnson (University of Northumbria), Pujo Semedi (Gadjah Mada University) and Mrinalini Shinde (University of Cologne).
This interdisciplinary event brings together legal and anthropological perspectives to critically examine the emerging crime of ecocide and the broader challenges of addressing large-scale environmental harm.
Speakers will offer their insights into the legal complexities of defining and prosecuting ecocide—particularly around the question of mental culpability and the role of concepts such as intent, recklessness, and “wantonness”. Alternatives to existing legal frameworks will be explored, including proposals for a socially grounded necessity defence to improve clarity and enforceability.
The discussion will also turn to the lived realities of environmental degradation, with a focus on palm oil cultivation in Indonesia. Drawing on ethnographic research, we will examine how economic development has come at a high environmental and social cost, raising questions about land rights, governance, and justice for affected communities.
Finally, we will address the difficult question of corporate accountability in cases of ecocide. How should corporations be sentenced if convicted of environmental crimes? What would effective retribution and restoration look like, especially from the perspective of victims and communities?
The event will consist of input from all speakers, followed by an open Q&A session to engage with the audience and deepen the discussion.
Luke Johnson is a PhD candidate and Associate Lecturer at the University of Northumbria, England. His doctoral research focuses on the definition and implementation of ecocide within international and domestic legal frameworks. His work critically examines how ecocide has been conceptualised globally, with particular attention to the mental element (mens rea) required to establish criminal responsibility.
Pujo Semedi is a professor at the Department of Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University, and a Global Faculty member of the University of Cologne. His research mainly addressed the issues of environmental and economic dynamics in rural agricultural communities. He published articles on Indonesian fishing communities, upland agriculture communities, and tea and palm oil plantations in Java and Kalimantan. Currently, he collects data on the social transformation from agricultural to industrial society in Southern Germany over the last two centuries. Pujo Semedi employs historical ethnography and the GIS method in his research to gain empirical data on what happens, when, where, and how before venturing further to reveal the why and the consequences of events under study to the research subjects’ social life.
Mrinalini Shinde B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), M.Sc., LL.M., is a qualified lawyer from India, based in Germany, with over 8 years of PQE, specializing in environmental and climate change law. She works at the intersection of institutional legal advisory, environmental law capacity-building, and data-driven environmental problem solving. She is a Lecturer of International Environmental Law at the University of Cologne. She currently serves as an Integrity Manager at International Sustainability & Carbon Certification Cologne, specialising in corporate responsibility, sanctions and whistleblower investigations especially under the EU Renewable Energy Directive. She has previously worked as a Programme Manager at the Environmental Law Center at the University of Cologne and as the Academic Coordinator for the IMES programme at the UoC. She has also served in the Legal Affairs Division of the UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn, as the focal point for capacity building on climate change law for parliamentarians and external stakeholders, and as a legal advisor within intergovernmental negotiations under the UNFCCC & Paris Agreement. She has served as a Policy Associate for the climate non-profit Climate Tracker Inc. and also represented clients in environmental cases as a litigator, including at the National Green Tribunal in India.
Venue
Seminar Room, Chair for US-American Law, University of Cologne
Aachener Straße 201, 50931 Köln and Online via Zoom.
Zoom Details:
https://uni-koeln.zoom.us/j/94342098157?pwd=AthH7An1No3f3TN5geA5aSEnFvy4ZA.1
Meeting-ID: 943 4209 8157
Passwort: 026319
Organized by Environmental Law Center University of Cologne, Cologne Environmental Society (CES e.V.) and Global South Studies Center (GSSC).