If you’ve been waiting to finally see Monsanto – one of the most hated companies in the world – to pay for its ecocide, knowing harm of human life, and devastation of our pollinators, then you won’t have to wait much longer. Several activist groups joined by food and farming experts are suing Monsanto for their crimes against humanity. [1]
Finally, Monsanto, the US-based, transnational company responsible for introducing multiple genetically modified crops and numerous toxic chemicals into our environment – including saccharin, aspartame, polystyrene, DDT, dioxin, Agent Orange, petroleum based fertilizers, recombinant bovine growth hormones (rGBH), Round Up (glyphosate), Lasso (an herbicide used in Europe), Bt toxic plants, and more – will have to answer to the world for its reign of terror. Monsanto has acted with severe negligence, and the hubris and supremacy of a corporation given personhood, but no longer.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, along with dozens of global food, farming, and environmental justice groups announced at the United Nations conference held recently in Paris that an international court of lawyers and judges will assess Monsanto’s criminal liability for their atrocious acts.
The court, in The Hague, Netherlands, will use the UN’s ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ developed in 2011 to assess damages for Monsanto’s acts against human life and the environment.
The court will also rely on the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense.
This International Criminal Court, established in 2002 in The Hague, has determined that prosecuting ecocide as a criminal offense is the only way to guarantee the rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.
Speaking at the press conference, Ronnie Cummins, international director of the OCA (US) and Via Organica (Mexico), and member of the RI Steering Committee, said:
“The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment. . . Corporate agribusiness, industrial forestry, the garbage and sewage industry and agricultural biotechnology have literally killed the climate-stabilizing, carbon-sink capacity of the Earth’s living soil.”
The proceedings will take place on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.
Sources:
Petition – Change.org
[1] SustainablePulse
