More than a decade ago, British lawyer Polly Higgins quit her high-flying job and sold her house. She wanted the time and money to throw herself into campaigning for a law she, and many others, believed could change the world and give us a vital tool to tackle climate change .

Higgins was fighting for ecocide to be recognized as an international crime against peace. Defined as the mass damage or destruction of natural living systems, the crime would impose a duty of care on individuals not to destroy the environment and would hold government ministers and corporate CEOs criminally responsible for the environmental damage they caused.

The aim: to close a gap in the law, which allows the perpetrators of large-scale environmental crimes to avoid accountability. The method: to add ecocide to the list of crimes prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (the ICC) in The Hague .