Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal: Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes

September 24, 2021: Inauguration of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC)
The CICC is a collaboration between Indian academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and Dutch artist Jonas Staal, which takes the form of a more-than-human tribunal to prosecute intergenerational climate crimes. During the inauguration at Framer Framed, D’Souza and Staal will introduce the legal framework of the CICC.

October 28–31, 2021: Comrades past, present and future vs. Unilever, ING, Airbus and the Dutch State
The CICC will host hearings in which evidence will be presented by prosecutors and witnesses relating to intergenerational climate crimes committed by corporations and states acting in concert. This is followed by the presentation of evidence of alternative forms of collective action in defense of intergenerational climate justice. Co-produced by Framer Framed Amsterdam, the CICC focuses on corporations registered in the Netherlands as well as the legal frameworks established by the Dutch state system supportive of the corporations.

The CICC aims to present evidence of climate crimes both past and present, assessing their impact in the here and now and their impact on planetary life of the future. As such, the tribunal rejects linear, atomised and individualised narratives underlying the present-day legal system to instead establish comradely bonds with ancestors and descendants across different time scales.

Apart from human actors, the court forms an ecology occupied by extinct animals, plants and ammonite fossils, each termed “comrade.” These non-human ancestors are simultaneously evidence of intergenerational climate crimes in the past, as well as witnesses—and comrades—in the collective effort of the CICC to contribute to intergenerational climate justice in the present and future.

The court proceedings will be directed by five judges: Radha D’Souza, Sharon H. Venne, Nicholas Hildyard, Rasigan Maharajh and Ramón Vera-Herrera. With evidentiary testimony and presentations from collectives and individuals representing Kenya Land Alliance, Pueblos Indígenas Amazónicos Unidos en Defensa de sus Territorios, Vettiver Collective, Synergie Nationale des Paysans et Riverains du Cameroun (SYNAPARCAM), Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), Stop Wapenhandel – European Network Against Arms Trade, and more.

Read more here.

Supported by:
Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts)
Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam 
Creative Industries Fund NL (Stimuleringsfonds voor Creatieve Industrie)
Outset Fund, Amsterdam

Partners:
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Textiellab, Tilburg