This paper examines the UN Security

In September 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor issued a new policy paper detailing the Office of the Prosecutor's (OTP) priorities for case selection and prioritization, including giving a 'particular consideration to prosecuting Rome Statute crimes that are committed by means of, or that result in, inter alia, the destruction of the environment, the illegal exploitation of natural resources or the illegal dispossession of land'. This new commitment of the OTP in fighting environmental devastation has been received enthusiastically by civil society and alleged victims. Indeed, few would disagree that protecting the environment against harmful conduct and conserving the world's natural resources are some of the most compelling challenges faced by the international community. Further, the negative impact of environmental destruction on human rights, and peace and security, is a matter of concern for many international institutions, including the United Nations Security Council. This article considers the merits and limits of prosecuting environmental destruction before the ICC. It contends that the significance and practical implications of the OTP's green shift ought to be appreciated against the constraints posed by existing criminal provisions (which have already received attention in the literature) and, more significantly, factual and structural challenges that have been more peripheral in the academic debate. Accordingly, the article suggests possible ways to overcome some of these obstacles. The article concludes by reflecting on the necessity to strike a balance between the OTP's commendable policy shift, victims' and environmental activists' expectations, and the ICC's possible contribution to 'environmental justice'.  Ph.D. Candidate, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. This article draws from the ongoing research for my doctoral dissertation, under the supervision of Assistant Professor Cheah Wui Ling. I am thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Errors and omissions remain my own.

Global law and the environment is an increasingly prominent and rapidly evolving area of scholarship. In confronting global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, and other symptoms of planetary breakdown, critical scholars from different intellectual traditions are questioning the traditional approach taken within environmental law which has, so far, only managed to save “some trees” but failed to keep “the forest”. These dominant legal interactions often use the law to address “problems” after they arrive. However, the law plays a key role also in constituting these “problems” by incentivizing certain harmful activities, upholding socio-political-economic structures, and through the limited framing of the issues it claims to solve. It is becoming increasingly clear that we live in a “legally constituted world”. Against this background, there is a need for further critical reflection on the role of the law in preventing, addressing, and even driving the entangled socio-ecological-economic crises of modernity. Through interrogating the assumptions that underlie environmental law, critical scholars have exposed, challenged, and put forward alternative visions to its neo-colonial and gendered biases; its exclusion of indigenous perspectives and voices; its construction upon problematic representations of “the environment” that centres an anthropocentric worldview; and a neoliberal economic order that fosters vast environmental damage.