Earth is our Business

Earth is our Business takes forward the argument of Polly Higgins' first book, Eradicating Ecocide. This book proposes new Earth law, but it is also about something more than law: it advocates a new form of leadership which places the health and well-being of people and planet first. Polly Higgins shows how law can provide the tools and be a bridge to a new way of doing business. She argues, in fact, that Earth is the business of us all, not the exclusive preserve of the executives of the world's top corporations.



Expanding on the proposal in her first book to make Ecocide an international crime, this book sets out the institutional framework for sustainable development and international environmental governance. It proposes new rules of the game to transform our economies, energy supplies and political landscape in a radical, but practical, way. The implications of Polly Higgins' proposal are far-reaching and profound.



Like her award-winning first book, Earth is our Business is written for anyone who is engaging in the new and emerging discourse about the future of our planet and sustainable development. Instead of merely examining the problem, Earth is our Business sets out a solution: new rules of the game. They are, says Polly Higgins, a new set of laws based on the sacredness of all life.



Included as appendices are a draft Ecocide Act, a proposal for revising World Bank investment rules, and the indictment used in the mock Ecocide Trial held in the UK Supreme Court in September 2011.



Polly Higgins is a barrister, international environmental lawyer and activist. In April 2010 she launched the campaign thisisecocide.com, which has already alerted thousands to the objective of establishing Ecocide as a crime. The Ecologist magazine voted her one of the 'World's Top 10 Visionary Thinkers', and she was nominated as 'The Lawyer for Planet Earth' in the 2010 Performance Awards. She has been appointed to the Arne Naess Chair for Global Justice and the Environment at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), an international research institution at the University of Oslo, which promotes scholarly work on the challenges and dilemmas posed by sustainable development