Understanding ecocide from the indigenous knowledge: for na ontological turn in the International Criminal Justice System

Abstract

This article aims to point out the importance of the consideration of ontologies of Brazilian indigenous peoples in the debate about the expansion of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to judge the crime of ecocide. It is argued that this consideration leads the International Criminal Justice System to a ontological turn, an expression extracted from anthropology to indicate the equality of knowledge in the construction of global institutions, traditionally constituted under Eurocentric standards. n methodological terms, the text is based on an interdisciplinary bibliographic researchs involving legal and anthropological studies that add to Decolonial Sociology. In addition, ways are described in which certain Brazilian indigenous communities relate to nature. To provide concreteity to the debate, there are also reference to journalistic articles about the topics discussed and a brief examination of the 2015 Mariana environmental disaster. In the end, the study concludes that the adoption of indigenous knowledge for a definition of ecocide strengthens the ICC, giving it greater effectiveness in environmental protection of the entire planet.