Verdict Presentation: CICC vs. The Dutch State

Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes, 2021, Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal. Photo: Ruben Hamelink. Commissioned by Framer Framed, Amsterdam

13 Jun 2022
18:00 - 20:30

Verdict Presentation: CICC vs. The Dutch State

On Monday 13 June Framer Framed in collaboration with the Society of Arts welcomes you to the announcement of the verdict in the hearing held against the Dutch State in the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) in October 2021. The programme will take place at the Trippenhuis of KNAW. Led by CICC initiators Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal, the evening will feature responses from Linda Steg and Daphina Misiedjan, moderated by Hicham Khalidi, who will reflect on the verdicts as well as the guiding statute of the CICC: The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act.

Our current legal system fails to prosecute transnational corporations and states as climate criminals, despite their ecocidal impact. The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act, developed by Indian lawyer, academic and activist Radha D’Souza and artist Jonas Staal, proposes a new legal paradigm for climate justice, which has been applied to climate crimes allegedly committed by Unilever, ING, Airbus and the Dutch State.

In 2021, D’Souza and Staal inaugurated their Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) in Framer Framed, Amsterdam. In this alternative climate tribunal they organised public hearings with judges, prosecutors and witnesses who testified to climate crimes perpetrated by transnational corporations and states.

The guiding legal document of this climate court is The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act, drafted by D’Souza. Moving away from “rights”, the document centers on interdependency: If one harms a river, one harms not only the life of the river, but the lives of all humans, animals and plants that live in interdependency with that river. Thus, rights can never be individual or owned: they are shared in an interdependent and intergenerational way.

During this gathering, the guiding principles of The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act will be introduced, followed by a reading of a verdict in relation to accusations voiced against the Dutch State for its complicity with intergenerational climate crimes. Invited speakers will respond to this alternative legal framework and speak to the necessity of implementing transformative legal imaginaries in the midst of the 6^th mass extinction.

Programme

18:30-18:40 Welcome and introduction by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal
18:40-18:50 Public reading of The Intergenerational Climate Crimes Act
18:50-19:10 Reading of the verdict in the case against the Dutch State
19:10-19:15 Introduction to the discussion Hicham Khalidi, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht
19:15-19:30 Response Daphina Misiedjan, Erasmus University Rotterdam
19:30-19:45 Response Linda Steg, University of Groningen
19:45-20:25 Discussion moderated by Hicham Khalidi
20:25-20:30 Final responses from Liesbeth Bik (AvK) and Framer Framed

Date
Monday 13 June, 18:30-20:30 (walk in from 18:00)

Location
KNAW, Het Trippenhuis
Kloveniersburgwal 29
1011 JV Amsterdam

Please register here to join.
This event is FREE and will be held in ENGLISH.

About the organisers

This event has been programmed by Framer Framed & the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes in collaboration with the Society of Arts (AvK), as part of the series Climate Narratives. Climate Narratives is a new public series by the Society of Arts (AvK), in which artists enter into dialogue with scientists, researchers, lawyers and activists to propose new imaginaries of climate justice. Facts are essential, but facts need narratives to become affective and therefore effective. Climate Narratives thus aims to introduce factful stories in defense of living worlds for all.

Climate Narratives is part of the monthly webinar series Klimaat Van Alle Kanten (Climate from all Sides) of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).