Ecocide As Nonviolent Environmental Activism in Climate Justice and Governance in the Mediterranean

Climate and environmental justice are ubiquitous terms in global climate governance today. The “Ecocide” -movement is an apt example of nonviolent environmental activism, aiming at making ecocide a fifth crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The goal of the Paris Agreement in 2015 is to provide financing to developing countries to mitigate climate change, strengthen resilience and enhance their abilities to adapt to climate impacts. The Mediterranean is a geographical area where people are affected by a faster warming than the global average. Climate activists in the Mediterranean region have pointed out that existing concepts which seem to provide solutions to climate change in fact reproduce and legitimize existing inequalities. Based on ethnographic research in the region, this paper argues that the environmental movement, such as the Ecocide, in the Mediterranean is gaining ground but faces simultaneously great challenges.