Santiago Gorostiza

The article examines the contributions of Arthur W. Galston (1920–2008) and Polly Higgins (1968–2019) to the concept of ecocide, from its origins in the Vietnam War to its revival in the twenty-first century. Biologist Arthur W. Galston, whose doctoral research was used to investigate defoliating agents, led a scientific campaign in the late 1960s against the massive use of herbicides by the United States in Vietnam. In 1970, Galston proposed the term ecocide to describe the deliberate destruction of the environment as a crime against humanity. Decades later, lawyer Polly Higgins revived the concept and promoted its inclusion as a fifth international crime in the Rome Statute, applicable both in wartime and in peacetime. Although her proposal has not yet been adopted, Higgins’s initiative contributed to put ecocide at the center of international legal debate.