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Declaration of Conscience

A group of lawyers in England have signed a “Declaration of Conscience” saying they will refuse to participate in the prosecution of peaceful climate protesters like Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain.


Protestor holding a sign saying: Don't be a fossil fool
Peaceful protestors | Unsplash

The group of about 120 lawyers, who go by the name “Lawyers are Responsible,” will also refuse to represent those participating in new fossil fuel projects.


“Like big tobacco, the fossil fuel industry has known for decades what its activities mean. They mean the loss of human life and property – which the civil law should prevent but does not,” Director of the Good Law Project Jolyon Maugham, one of the key signatories of the declaration, wrote in The Guardian.


“The scientific evidence is that global heating, the natural and inevitable consequence of its actions, will cause the deaths of huge numbers of people. The criminal law should punish this but it does not. Nor does the law recognise a crime of ecocide to deter the destruction of the planet. The law works for the fossil fuel industry – but it does not work for us.”


The Declaration of Conscience asks lawyers and the government “to act urgently to do whatever they can to address the causes and consequences of the climate and ecological crises and to advance a just transition to sustainability.”

 
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