Location: SAV 264

Endangering Humanity: An International Crime?

Catriona McKinnon
Professor
Politics and International Relations
University of Reading, U.K.

In the Anthropocene, human beings are capable of bringing about globally catastrophic outcomes that could damage present and future human life on Earth in unprecedented ways. This paper argues that the scale and severity of these dangers justifies a new international criminal offence of  'postericide’ that would protect present and future people against wrongfully created dangers of near extinction. Postericide is committed by intentional or reckless conduct that systematically creates such dangers. A proper understanding of the moral imperatives embodied in international criminal law shows that it ought to be expanded to incorporate a new law of postericide.

Catriona McKinnon is Professor of Political Theory, and Director of the Leverhulme Programme in Climate Justice, at the University of Reading. She has published three monographs - Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism, Toleration: A Critical Introduction, and Climate Change and Future Justice - and has edited eight books on topics ranging from citizenship, toleration, basic income, climate ethics and governance, and including the textbook Issues in Political Theory for OUP (now going into its fourth edition). Her most recent published papers include ‘Endangering Humanity: An International Crime?’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2017), ‘Should We Tolerate Climate Denial?’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy (2016), and ‘Climate Justice in a Carbon Budget’, Climatic Change (2016). At present, she is completing a monograph defending the idea of a new international criminal offence ('postericide') that proscribes conduct fit to bring about the near extinction of humanity. After that she will write an introductory book on climate justice and ethics for Polity.