AN MSP has started the ball rolling on a new law which could punish companies guilty of committing ‘ecocide’ in Scotland.
Labour’s Monica Lennon has tabled proposals for a prevention law that could see lengthy jail sentences and company profits confiscated for those willfully harming the environment.
Ecocide is defined as the mass damage and destruction of the natural living world and essentially means killing the environment.
Scotland would not be the first country to bring forward plans to make ecocide a criminal offence, but Ms Lennon’s proposals would make it the first part of the UK to do so.
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READ MORE: Ecocide law - Polluters could see turnover seized and 20 years in jail
Ms Lennon will launch a consultation on her members’ bill at Holyrood today
She told The Herald that “the real aim of this is to prevent ecocide from happening. The philosophy is if you have a really strong deterrent with really serious consequences, you could be going to jail for up to 20 years, then it’s going to change behaviours.
“Obviously any law that is passed wouldn’t come into effect straight away so there’s time for a bit of public education around this and get corporate actors behaving differently.”
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