Initiative is unique and unprecedented, says journalist Marie-Monique Robin

A group of lawyers and NGOs have launched the “Monsanto Tribunal” to try Monsanto for the crime of ecocide. The tribunal will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, from 12 to 16 October 2016.

The tribunal is supported by organisations such as Via Campesina, the Organic Consumers Association, and GRAIN.

Members of the steering committee include Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva; the lawyer and former French environment minister Corinne Lepage; the journalist and maker of the film The World According to Monsanto, Marie-Monique Robin; the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food and co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), Olivier de Schutter; the scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini; and the president of the Millennium Institute, Hans Herren.

The tribunal intends to "judge the crimes charged to the American multinational in the environmental and health field and contribute to the recognition of the crime of ecocide in international law”.

The tribunal’s website says, “According to its critics, Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, by manipulating the press and media, etc. The history of Monsanto would thereby constitute a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.”

In addition to Monsanto, the tribunal intends to mount a "best case" to denounce "all multinational companies which are driven by the profit motive and thereby threaten human health and the safety of the planet".

The initiative is “unique and unprecedented”, says Marie-Monique Robin.

Sources:
Monsanto Tribunal www.monsanto-tribunal.org
Libération http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2015/12/02/monsanto-pour-que-justice-germe_1417833