Environmental damage is emerging as the biggest threat to the survival of our planet. Companies that put people and the environment at risk, must be punished for their crimes
Bianca Jagger was born Bianca Perez-Mora Macías in Managua, Nicaragua in 1950. She is a prominent international human rights and climate change advocate. She is the founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation , Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, and Trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust.
The first wife of Rolling Stones’ lead singer, Mick Jagger, Bianca has campaigned for human rights, social and economic justice and environmental protection throughout the world.
She is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “alternative Nobel prize”. She also received the World Achievement Award from Mikhail Gorbachev in January 2009.
The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) are advocating that The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction should be extended to cover crimes against future generations that are not already proscribed by the ICC’s Rome Statute as crimes against humanity, war crimes, or crimes of genocide. The definition of a crime against future generations asks that “Conduct which places the very survival of life at risk should be prohibited and prosecuted as an international crime.”
The Texaco disaster culminated in the largest environmental lawsuit in history, brought by 30,000 plaintiffs from the Ecuadorean Amazon. The case, dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl,” is in its final stages in Ecuador’s courts and a verdict is expected to be announced this year.
(This story appears in the 04 June, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)