Translating Environmental Harm into Legal Accountability – Transnational Legal Activism and the AllRise Case

Abstract (English)

International law has long struggled to recognize and address environmental destruction as a prosecutable crime, as its legal categories were historically developed for war-related atrocities rather than slow, accumulative harm against ecosystems and communities. The 2021 case filed by AllRise at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Bolsonaro administration represents a critical intervention in legal activism, seeking to expand the boundaries of international criminal law by framing deforestation and environmental destruction in the Amazon as a crime against humanity.

This paper examines how transnational legal activism navigates the constraints of international legal frameworks to push for accountability in cases where law does not yet fully recognize harm. Through document analysis, legal ethnography, and network mapping, this research investigates:

How legal actors, NGOs, and scientists collaborate to compile, translate, and present environmental destruction as legal evidence.
The challenges of fitting Indigenous rights and grassroots claims into rigid international legal categories.
How legal activism reinterprets and pressures legal frameworks, such as the Genocide Convention, to accommodate environmental harm.
By examining the processes through which environmental harm is framed within legal categories, this paper explores the role of transnational legal activism as both a tool for accountability and a mechanism for redefining legal frameworks. The case study of AllRise at the ICC highlights how legal practitioners strategically mobilize scientific, Indigenous, and advocacy-based knowledge to challenge legal norms and build pressure for legal transformation.

Ultimately, this paper interrogates whether legal activism can successfully push international law to evolve in response to planetary crises or whether law remains a rigid structure resistant to systemic change. By focusing on the intersection of legal anthropology, transnational governance, and environmental justice, this research provides insights into the evolving role of legal activism in shaping international accountability for environmental harm.