--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sign the Petition requesting The Honble Minister of State for Environment and Forests (I/C) to maintain the moratorium on issuing further environmental clearances for mining activities in Goa
http://goanvoice.org.uk/miningpetition.php --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A concept of the law as reported in the latest Outlook magazine is currently being pursued in the UK by the famous Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. See the link http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265070. - it makes for interesting reading. With regard to an extension of this concept, the following paragraph would indicate relevance to Goa if the international courts take cognizance. It would then only be a matter of time before international warrants are applied for an issued for the big fish responsible for the mining disaster happening in Goa. Imagine Digamber Kamat and his scofflaw companions along with prominent mine-owners being put inside international prisons! Higgins gives some examples of ecocide: the tar sands mining in Alberta, the Pacific garbage patch, the pollution of the Niger Delta by oil companies(10 <http://www.thisisecocide.com/hotspots/> ). She points out that ecocide is rarely a crime of intent, but in most cases an incidental consequence of other policies. Company directors or politicians could be prosecuted individually(11 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/09/ecocide-crime-genocide-un -environmental-damage> ), but instead of being fined they would be charged for the restoration of the natural systems they've damaged. The purpose of criminalising ecocide is to raise the costs of trashing the planet to the point at which it ceases to be worthwhile. This is the obvious outcome of a wider understanding of legal equality: why should private property be protected while the common wealth of humanity is not? Roland Francis