Recommendation 6

Should the Parliament determine that the Bill should progress to Stage 2, there should be detailed consultation with the Crown Office and environmental regulators to ensure a drafting approach is taken that (a) clearly differentiates between an ecocide-level offence and the current section 40 offence and (b) in appropriate cases, enables a court or jury to convict of the section 40 offence on an ecocide prosecution, so as to avoid a situation where serious wrongdoing is not punished because of difficulties in proving the offence met the threshold for ecocide.