In a world gripped by an ever-worsening ecological crisis there are present and increasing genocidal pressures on many culturally distinct social groups, such as indigenous peoples. This is where the genocide-ecocide nexus presents itself.
The destruction of ecosystems, ecocide, can be a method of genocide if, for example, environmental destruction results in conditions of life that fundamentally threaten a social group's cultural and/or physical existence. Given the looming threat of runaway climate change, the attendant rapid extinction of species, destruction of habitats, ecological collapse and the self-evident dependency of the human race on our bio-sphere, ecocide (both "natural" and "manmade") will become a primary driver of genocide. Through nine chapters of cutting-edge research, this book examines specific case studies in geographical settings such as Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria and Brazil, to highlight and analyse the crucial connections and vectors of the genocide-ecocide nexus. This book will be of great value to scholars, students and researchers interested in the ecological crisis, Environmental Justice, the political economy of genocide and ecocide as well as environmental human rights.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Genocide Research.
Introduction
Martin Crook and Damien Short
1. Developmentalism and the Genocide- Ecocide Nexus
Martin Crook and Damien Short
2. The Genocide- Ecocide Nexus in Sudan: Violent “Development” and the Racial- Spatial Dynamics of (Neo)Colonial- Capitalist Extraction
Louise Wise
3. The Politics of Ecocide, Genocide and Megaprojects: Interrogating Natural Resource Extraction, Identity and the Normalization of Erasure
Alexander Dunlap
4. Green Criminology and State- Corporate Crime: The Ecocide- Genocide Nexus with Examples from Nigeria
Michael J. Lynch, Averi Fegadel and Michael A. Long
5. The Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE): An Ecologically Induced Genocide of the Malind Anim
John E. McDonnell
6. “We Won’t Survive in a City. The Marshes are Our Life”: An Analysis of Ecologically Induced Genocide in the Iraqi Marshes
Cara Priestley
7. The Colonial Reproduction of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Violence Against Indigenous Peoples for Land Development
Danilo Urzedo and Pratichi Chatterjee
Postscript: Call to Action - The Climate Emergency: A Statement from Genocide Scholars on the Necessity for a Paradigm Shift
Mark Levene and Taner Akçam
Biography
Damien Short is Director of the Human Rights Consortium (HRC) and Professor of Human Rights and Environmental Justice at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He has spent his entire professional career working in the field of human rights, both as a scholar and human rights advocate and activist. He has researched and published extensively in the areas of indigenous peoples’ rights, genocide studies, reconciliation projects and environmental human rights. He is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Human Rights.
Martin Crook is Associate Lecturer at Roehampton University and a PhD Candidate at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. His research interests include human rights and the ecological crisis, the political economy of genocide and ecocide, energy harms and development. He is Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Human Rights.
