Earth is our Business takes forward the argument of Polly Higgins’ first book, Eradicating Ecocide. This book proposes new Earth law, but it is also about something more than law: it advocates a new form of leadership which places the health and well-being of people and planet first. Polly Higgins shows how law can provide the tools and be a bridge to a new way of doing business. She argues, in fact, that Earth is the business of us all, not the exclusive preserve of the executives of the world’s top corporations.
Expanding on the proposal in her first book to make Ecocide an international crime, this book sets out the institutional framework for sustainable development and international environmental governance. It proposes new rules of the game to transform our economies, energy supplies and political landscape in a radical, but practical, way. The implications of Polly Higgins’ proposal are far-reaching and profound.
Like her award-winning first book, Earth is our Business is written for anyone who is engaging in the new and emerging discourse about the future of our planet. Instead of merely examining the problem, Earth is our Business sets out a solution: new rules of the game. They are, says Polly Higgins, a new set of laws based on the sacredness of all life.
Included as appendices are a draft Ecocide Act, a proposal for revising World Bank investment rules, and the indictment used in the mock Ecocide Trial held in the UK Supreme Court in September 2011.
Eradicating Ecocide won The People’s Book Prize for non-fiction in 2011.
Polly Higgins, barrister and international environmental lawyer, proposed to the United Nations in April 2010 that Ecocide be classed as the 5th Crime Against Peace alongside Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes. In June 2012 world leaders will meet in Rio for the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit to discuss global governance mechanisms for creating a green economy. Making Ecocide a crime will be among the issues raised.
