Turkey Ecocide Law Citizens Initiative

Summary

On 28 November 2023, following three years of preparation work, an Ecocide Law Citizens’ Initiative presented a petition to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) for ecocide to be recognized as a crime in the Turkish Penal Code. The petition was supported by 28,820 signatures.

The TBMM Petition Committee Presidency Council rejected the petition for the ecocide law on the grounds that such a legislative request could only be presented by members of parliament, and the petition was forwarded to the archive. In December 2024, citizens filed a lawsuit against the Turkish Parliament’s Petition Committee for failing to process the ecocide petition, however case was not successful.

The bill to amend the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237 of 2004 proposed changing the title “Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity” in the First Chapter to “Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and the Planet” and to add the following Article:

Article 77/A: The Crime of Ecocide
“(1) A person who endangers the life of humans or other living beings in the natural or cultural environment, commits an act that may cause serious damage to natural or cultural assets, or commits another unlawful act that creates a risk of causing irreparable damage to the entire ecosystem in the short term, shall be sentenced to life imprisonment, and shall also be sentenced to a fine equal to ten times the material benefits obtained from the commission of the crime and the economic gain resulting from their valuation or transformation.

If the crime of ecocide results in damage to an entire ecosystem that cannot be remedied in the short term, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment; if the crime is committed negligently, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, and a judicial fine of twenty times the amount of the material benefits obtained from the crime and the economic gain resulting from their valuation or transformation shall also be imposed.”

Legal Updates
In March 2025, MP Nimet Özdemir, from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkiye’s main opposition party, introduced a new bill to amend the penal code to criminalize ecocide. CHP has supported the citizen-led petition to criminalize ecocide, and the call has also been backed by members of several other political parties, including the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), the İYİ Party, and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA).

Involved Organizations