From 7 to 11 July, the Nuremberg Academy held a five-day seminar of exchange of good practices on the fight against impunity for environmental international crimes at Colombia Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP)) in Bogotá. The seminar was organised in partnership with the JEP, as well as the Asser Institute and the Antonio Cassese Initiative.
The seminar gathered 30 magistrates, deputy magistrates and legal officers of the JEP. Interdisciplinary in nature, the seminar focused on four major aspects related to the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of environmental international crimes at the JEP: the legal qualification of environmentally harmful conducts as international crimes, scientific evidence to prove such crimes, collective reparations for environmental harm, and restorative sanctions for those responsible for such harm. With the aim to foster open dialogue and reflections between experts and participants, the seminar combined general sessions on the aforementioned topics and workshops on four environmentally harmful conducts particularly relevant for Colombia: deforestation, illegal mining, aerial fumigation, and land-grabbing and illicit crop cultivation.
Four experts, coming from international criminal law, scientific, human rights and transitional justice backgrounds, contributed to the seminar. Building bridges between law and science, Project Officer Dr Pauline Martini covered aspects related to the qualification of environmentally harmful conducts under international criminal law, while Flaviano Bianchini, Founder and Director of Source International, addressed how to establish such conducts based on scientific evidence. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to a Healthy Environment Astrid Puentes Riaño and Juliana Galindo, Lawyer at G37 Centre, discussed how to repair environmental harm, taking into account the JEP’s ethnic-racial focus. Juliana Galindo also reflected on good practices for the establishment of restorative sanctions for environmental international crimes.
The seminar opened with welcoming remarks from Dr Alejandro Ramelli, President of the JEP, Judge Dr Gloria Amparo Rodríguez, Head of the JEP Territorial and Environmental Commission (Comisión Territorial y Ambiental), Darleen Seda, Senior Officer for Training and Capacity Strengthening, and Dr Niki Siampakou (Asser Institute). In her opening speech, Senior Officer Darleen Seda underscored the need to advance international legal responses to environmental crimes, and highlighted the Nuremberg Academy’s active engagement in international discussions aimed at closing the accountability for serious environmental harm. Senior Officer Darleen Seda also engaged with JEP President Dr Alejandro Ramelli and JEP Judge Dr Gloria Amparo Rodríguez in a sideline meeting to present the Academy’s mission and mandate, and shared insights on the role of institutional cooperation in advancing accountability while exploring specific areas of cooperation.
This initiative marked the Nuremberg Academy’s second collaboration with the JEP and reinforced its role in advancing accountability for international environmental crimes. Following the call for public consultations on a policy on environmental crimes from the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the Nuremberg Academy submitted two important comments together with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme in March 2024 and February 2025. (pm/ds)
Find information about last year’s seminar with the JEP here.
Find information about the Nuremberg Academy’s contribution to the ICC Office of the Prosecutor’s Policy Paper on Environmental Crimes here and here.
