DOCSLIB.ORG

Brussels, 2 November 2020

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Brussels, 2 November 2020 Brussels, 2 November 2020 Dear Members, As we heard at the annual conference in an intellectually stimulating and, for me at least, deeply moving lecture by Professor von Bar, in Europe at least you cannot see the law in isolation from our system of values. Our law-based society is an ecosystem which cannot survive if we destroy or allow others to destroy the natural environment in which we humans deploy our activities. The law is not value-neutral and I make no apologies for raising this question which some may regard as excessively political. I have a story to tell and a proposal to make. Polly Higgins died aged 50 of an aggressive cancer on Easter Day 2019. A British barrister, she led a decade-long campaign for “ecocide” to be recognised as a crime against humanity. She sold her house and gave up a well-paid job to dedicate herself to attempting to create a law that would make corporate executives and government ministers criminally liable for the damage they do to ecosystems. On her website Higgins wrote: “There is a missing responsibility to protect … What is required is an expansion of our collective duty of care to protect the natural living world and all life.” Anyone who has reached my age cannot help but compare the world in which he or she grew up, with the world as it is now. As long ago as 1962, Rachel Carson published a book entitled Silent Spring documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly. For my part, I remember the countryside in my native Devon when I was a child, pullulating with life, this is no longer the case; five years ago, our garden in Le Marche was full of bees and horseflies and wasps were a constant menace, this year there were few. Many scientists consider we are living through the Sixth Mass Extinction. When Polly Higgins started her campaign to make to make ecocide an international crime, scepticism about climate change was still rife. Now, its effects are palpable and growing, and the latest manifestation of humans’ interference with the natural world and the wanton destruction of habitats and wildlife for gain is the Covid pandemic and the wilful destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Right now, a superannuated Japanese oil tanker is breaking up, and people are desperately trying to minimise the damage to the sands, reefs and wildlife of Mauritius. The law is about dissuasion and I strongly believe that we as lawyers should be taking a close look at the merits of Polly Higgins’ proposals as law and as a potential deterrent to corporations, holders of corporate office, managers and members of government. As you know, the Rome Statute is the treaty that created the International Criminal Court or ICC. It was adopted on 17 July 1989 and became effective on 1 July 2002. The ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for international crimes of crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and aggression. Currently, 122 countries are State Parties to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. To amend the Rome Statute, a State Party has to submit the text of its proposed amendment to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who circulates it to all States Parties. The States Parties then vote on whether to take up the proposal. If the proposal is taken up, the amendment can be referred to a review conference, or to a vote by the Assembly of States Parties. If a two-thirds majority of the States Parties vote in favour, the amendment is adopted. No country has a veto, and the votes of small countries have the same weight as larger countries. In April 2010, Higgins put a proposal to the UN Law Commission designed to amend the Rome Statute to include “ecocide” as a fifth crime against peace. She defined ecocide as “the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.” The crimes against peace defined in Article 5(1) of the Rome Statute are: 1. The Crime of Genocide 2. Crimes Against Humanity 3. War Crimes 4. The Crime of Aggression According to her website, the inclusion of ecocide law as a crime under international law would create a legal duty of care for all inhabitants that have been or are at risk of being significantly harmed due to ecocide. It is worth noting that ecocide is already a crime in wartime, since Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute provides that it is a crime to “intentionally launch an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause…widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment…” Higgins later expanded her definition into a model law. She initially proposed that ecocide should be a crime of strict liability, but she later took the view that intention, recklessness or negligence should be required. The model law is directed against acts or omissions which cause extensive “damage to, destruction of, or loss of human and/or non-human life to the inhabitants of the territory” where “inhabitants” include “indigenous occupants and/or settled communities of a territory consisting of one or more of the following: (i) humans, (ii) animals, fish, birds or insects, (iii) plant species, (iv) other living organisms.” In September 2011 Polly organised a mock ecocide trial in the Supreme Court in London to road-test the draft Ecocide Act (UK). The mock trial assumed that the law had already been enacted and so enabled it to be applied and examined from a number of angles to establish whether or not it was viable. This was the first time that a law not yet on the statute books had been tested in such a way. The trial was not scripted but unfolded in the same way as a real trial; there was a properly vetted jury, Michael Mansfield QC and his legal team prosecuted, and Christopher Parker QC and his legal team defended. On 15 October 2016, a civil society held a mock international tribunal of Monsanto at the Hague, eventually finding the company liable for the crime of ‘ecocide In 2014, the group “End Ecocide on Earth” presented 170,000 signatures to the European Parliament in support of a EU Directive against ecocide. In 2018, the ambassador of Vanuatu to the EU stated that he supported the call for ecocide to be made into a crime under international law and Vanuatuan foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu stated that he would propose that the Vanuatuan government take the proposed ecocide amendment forward to the ICC. In the very recent period, the Pope has also come out in favour of ecocide as a fifth crime against peace. President Macron is also in favour. I would note in passing that for some time before its adoption, the draft Rome Statute did in fact make provision for the crime of ecocide. Certain European States contrived to exclude it. Polly Higgins’ proposals are not only of great political concern, they also raise extremely interesting legal questions. ELI, in my view, ought to be considering this question in order to take a fresh look at her proposal to amend the Rome Statute and at her idea of drafting a model law. There is a great deal of material out there – Polly Higgins was not the first or the only lawyer to put forward the idea of ecocide as an international crime. Professor Laurent Neyret and his collaborators, in particular, have made a detailed analysis of the question and put forward punctiliously detailed proposals. This means that it would be a comparatively simple matter to produce a feasibility study, although this is not to underestimate the legal difficulties. Following the last Council meeting, it has been decided to form a group to draw up a feasibility study on ecocide, Professor Fausto Pocar, Robert Bray, Mark Clough, Laura Guercio and Ilaria Pretelli, with Femke Wijdekop, of Stop Ecocide NL, would invite interested members to make themselves known to the Secretariat. Suggestions for outside experts would also be appreciated. I would urge those amongst you who have an interest in criminal law, international criminal law and environmental law to make themselves known. I am not personally holding myself out as a reporter as this is not my speciality but I am prepared to put my shoulder to the wheel. Best regards, Robert Bray I am grateful to the following: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1814&context=elr http://blog.uclm.es/repmult/files/2019/12/EcocideGB-072016.pdf https://ecocidelaw.com, along with George Monbiot’s obituary for Polly Higgins in the Guardian and Polly Higgin’s website, where JoJo Mehta and her team continue her crusade. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Apocalypse Now? Initial Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic for the Governance of Existential and Global Catastrophic Risks
    journal of international humanitarian legal studies 11 (2020) 295-310 brill.com/ihls Apocalypse Now? Initial Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic for the Governance of Existential and Global Catastrophic Risks Hin-Yan Liu, Kristian Lauta and Matthijs Maas Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract This paper explores the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic through the framework of exis- tential risks – a class of extreme risks that threaten the entire future of humanity. In doing so, we tease out three lessons: (1) possible reasons underlying the limits and shortfalls of international law, international institutions and other actors which Covid-19 has revealed, and what they reveal about the resilience or fragility of institu- tional frameworks in the face of existential risks; (2) using Covid-19 to test and refine our prior ‘Boring Apocalypses’ model for understanding the interplay of hazards, vul- nerabilities and exposures in facilitating a particular disaster, or magnifying its effects; and (3) to extrapolate some possible futures for existential risk scholarship and governance. Keywords Covid-19 – pandemics – existential risks – global catastrophic risks – boring apocalypses 1 Introduction: Our First ‘Brush’ with Existential Risk? All too suddenly, yesterday’s ‘impossibilities’ have turned into today’s ‘condi- tions’. The impossible has already happened, and quickly. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, both directly and as manifested through the far-reaching global societal responses to it, signal a jarring departure away from even the © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/18781527-01102004Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 12:13:00AM via free access <UN> 296 Liu, Lauta and Maas recent past, and suggest that our futures will be profoundly different in its af- termath.
    [Show full text]
  • COVID-19: Make It the Last Pandemic
    COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic Disclaimer: The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city of area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Report Design: Michelle Hopgood, Toronto, Canada Icon Illustrator: Janet McLeod Wortel Maps: Taylor Blake COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic by The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness & Response 2 of 86 Contents Preface 4 Abbreviations 6 1. Introduction 8 2. The devastating reality of the COVID-19 pandemic 10 3. The Panel’s call for immediate actions to stop the COVID-19 pandemic 12 4. What happened, what we’ve learned and what needs to change 15 4.1 Before the pandemic — the failure to take preparation seriously 15 4.2 A virus moving faster than the surveillance and alert system 21 4.2.1 The first reported cases 22 4.2.2 The declaration of a public health emergency of international concern 24 4.2.3 Two worlds at different speeds 26 4.3 Early responses lacked urgency and effectiveness 28 4.3.1 Successful countries were proactive, unsuccessful ones denied and delayed 31 4.3.2 The crisis in supplies 33 4.3.3 Lessons to be learnt from the early response 36 4.4 The failure to sustain the response in the face of the crisis 38 4.4.1 National health systems under enormous stress 38 4.4.2 Jobs at risk 38 4.4.3 Vaccine nationalism 41 5.
    [Show full text]
  • Relation Between Sunspots and Covid19 – a Proof for Panspermia
    International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056 Volume: 07 Issue: 11 | Nov 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072 RELATION BETWEEN SUNSPOTS AND COVID19 – A PROOF FOR PANSPERMIA Janani T1 1Department of Biotechnology, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India ---------------------------------------------------------------------***---------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract - The novel viral or the bacterial pandemics and epidemics are not new to this earth. Often these disease-causing pathogens are of unknown origin and often identified as an infection which is transmitted from other animals. They are frequently found as the mutated form of the original strain or completely a newly developed strain. The causes for this mutation are many which comprises of both natural and artificial sources. The time of occurrence of these pandemic and epidemic astonishingly coincides with the sun spot extremum (often minimum). It is observed that whenever there is a sun spot extremum there was a novel microbial pandemic or epidemic. The current COVID19 pandemic is also suggested to be due to such sunspot extremum as the sun cycle is currently at its sun spot minimum. This review aims at providing the facts of relation between sunspots and the novel corona virus pandemic and there by stating this occurrence as a proof for panspermia. Key Words: Pandemic, Epidemic, COVID19, Sunspot, Solar Cycle, Solar minimum, Panspermia 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 SUNSPOTS: Sunspots are the dark regions in the sun’s surface due to the concentration of magnetic field in that region. These regions are relatively colder to the other regions of the sun’s surface. Hotter region emits more light than the colder region hence these regions appear to be darker and called the spots of the sun.
    [Show full text]
  • Global Catastrophic Risks Survey
    GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISKS SURVEY (2008) Technical Report 2008/1 Published by Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom At the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference in Oxford (17‐20 July, 2008) an informal survey was circulated among participants, asking them to make their best guess at the chance that there will be disasters of different types before 2100. This report summarizes the main results. The median extinction risk estimates were: Risk At least 1 million At least 1 billion Human extinction dead dead Number killed by 25% 10% 5% molecular nanotech weapons. Total killed by 10% 5% 5% superintelligent AI. Total killed in all 98% 30% 4% wars (including civil wars). Number killed in 30% 10% 2% the single biggest engineered pandemic. Total killed in all 30% 10% 1% nuclear wars. Number killed in 5% 1% 0.5% the single biggest nanotech accident. Number killed in 60% 5% 0.05% the single biggest natural pandemic. Total killed in all 15% 1% 0.03% acts of nuclear terrorism. Overall risk of n/a n/a 19% extinction prior to 2100 These results should be taken with a grain of salt. Non‐responses have been omitted, although some might represent a statement of zero probability rather than no opinion. 1 There are likely to be many cognitive biases that affect the result, such as unpacking bias and the availability heuristic‒‐well as old‐fashioned optimism and pessimism. In appendix A the results are plotted with individual response distributions visible. Other Risks The list of risks was not intended to be inclusive of all the biggest risks.
    [Show full text]
  • Covid-19 Response and Recovery
    COVID-19 RESPONSE AND RECOVERY Nature-Based Solutions for People, Planet and Prosperity Recommendations for Policymakers November 2020 Nicole Schwab Elena Berger Co-Director Executive Director 1t.org Bank Information Center Patricia Zurita M. Sanjayan CEO CEO Birdlife International Conservation International Mark Gough Kathleen Rogers CEO President Capitals Coalition Earth Day Network Andrea Crosta Carlos Manuel Rodriguez Founder and Executive Director CEO and Chairperson Earth League International Global Environment Facility Wes Sechrest Paul Polman Chief Scientist and CEO Chair Global Wildlife Conservation Imagine Azzedine Downes Karen B. Strier President and CEO President International Fund for Animal Welfare International Primatological Society II Sylvia Earle Lucy Almond President and Chair Director and Chair Mission Blue Nature4Climate Jennifer Morris Bonnie Wyper CEO President The Nature Conservancy Thinking Animals United Justin Adams Cristián Samper Executive Director President and CEO Tropical Forest Alliance Wildlife Conservation Society Peter Bakker President and CEO Andrew Steer World Business Council for President and CEO Sustainable Development World Resources Institute Jodi Hilty Marco Lambertini President and Chief Scientist Director General Yellowstone to Yukon WWF International Conservation Initiative III Executive Summary COVID-19 highlights the critical connection between the health of nature and human health. This connection must be better reflected in our priorities, policies and actions. The root causes of this pandemic are common to many root causes of the climate change and biodiversity crises. Confronting these intertwined crises requires an integrated approach and unprecedented cooperation to achieve an equitable carbon-neutral, nature-positive economic recovery and a sustainable future. Our organizations’ recommendations to policymakers for meeting this challenge are offered below.
    [Show full text]
  • Linking Environment and Conflict Prevention the Role of the United Nations
    FULL REPORT LINKING ENVIRONMENT AND CONFLICT PREVENTION THE ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS CSS peace ETH Zurich © CSS and swisspeace 2008 Center for Security Studies (CSS) ETH Zurich Seilergraben 45-49 - SEI CH – 8092 Zürich Tel.: +41-44-632 40 25 Fax: +41-44-632 19 41 [email protected] www.css.ethz.ch swisspeace Sonnenbergstrasse 17 P.O. Box CH - 3000 Bern 7 Tel.: +41-31-330 12 12 Fax: +41-31-330 12 13 [email protected] www.swisspeace.ch A report by Simon A. Mason, Adrian Muller Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich Albrecht Schnabel, Rina Alluri, Christian Schmid swisspeace, Bern Supervised by Andreas Wenger (CSS), Victor Mauer (CSS), and Laurent Goetschel (swisspeace) This is the full report, which can be accessed at <www.css.ethz.ch> and <www.swisspeace.ch> as well as in the “CSS Environment and Conflict Transformation” Series (www.isn.ethz.ch > “Publishing House” > “Publication Series”). An 18-page summary of this full report can be accessed at the same websites. Cover photo Paul Klee, Rosenwind 1922,39 Ölfarbe auf Grundierung auf Papier auf Karton 38,2 x 41,8 cm Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Schenkung Livia Klee Contents Foreword..................................................................................................................................... 4 Acronyms and Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures and Tables...........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • International Criminal Law and Climate Change
    ARTICLE_KEENAN_FORMATTED (1) (DO NOT DELETE) 4/12/2019 4:50 PM INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW AND CLIMATE CHANGE Patrick J. Keenan I. INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................89 II. HARNESSING THE POWER OF EXPRESSIVISM ..................................99 A. A Theory of Behavioral Change ...................................... 101 B. The Conditions Under Which Expressivism Works Best.. 103 III. CLIMATE CHANGE AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW ................. 106 A. Causes, Consequences, and Attribution ......................... 108 B. Expressivism and the Problem of Climate Change .......... 110 IV. COMPLICATIONS AND OBJECTIONS ............................................. 119 A. Political Plausibility .......................................................... 120 B. Poor Fit with International Criminal Law Institutions ........ 122 I. INTRODUCTION The problem of climate change has captured the attention of scholars and advocates from diverse academic disciplines that would ordinarily have little in common.1 Part of the reason for this is the sheer magnitude of the problem.2 According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there is evidence that current climate change patterns will produce “irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system.”3 Among many Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law. For helpful comments and conversations, I am grateful to Charlotte Ku, Shirley Scott, and Verity Winship. 1 The scholarly literature on climate change is enormous and growing, and a thorough review is beyond the scope of this Article. For a useful assemblage of the ways that scholars have studied climate change, see generally OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIETY 3 (John S. Dryzek et al. eds., 2011) [hereinafter OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CLIMATE CHANGE] (attempting to draw on “a representation of the best scholars” from diverse disciplines to “represent and engage with their literatures” to understand the many diverse causes and consequences of climate change).
    [Show full text]
  • Ready Or Not 2021: Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases
    ISSUE REPORT Ready or Not: PROTECTING THE PUBLIC’S HEALTH FROM DISEASES, DISASTERS, AND BIOTERRORISM 2021 MARCH 2021 Acknowledgements The National Health Security Preparedness Index (NHSPI) is a joint Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the University public health policy, research, and advocacy organization that of Kentucky, and the University of Colorado. TFAH wishes to promotes optimal health for every person and community and recognize and thank Glen Mays and Michael Childress of the makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority. NHSPI for their collaboration and expertise as well as the Robert The Ready or Not report series is supported by generous Wood Johnson Foundation for its continued funding support. grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with Ready or Not and the NHSPI are complementary projects that additional support from The California Endowment, W.K. work together to measure and improve the country’s health Kellogg Foundation and The Kresge Foundation. Opinions security and emergency preparedness. TFAH looks forward to a in this report are TFAH’s and do not necessarily reflect the continued partnership. views of its funders. TFAH BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gail Christopher, D.N. Stephanie Mayfield Gibson, M.D. Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., MPH Chair of the Board Director Chief Medical Office for Prevention Executive Director U.S. COVID-19 Response Initiative American Heart Association National Collaborative for Health Equity Resolve to Save Lives Umair A. Shah, M.D., MPH Former Senior Advisor and Vice President Cynthia M. Harris, Ph.D. Secretary of the Health W.K.
    [Show full text]
  • STOP ECOCIDE Oil Spills
    WHAT IS ECOCIDE? It means mass damage and destruction of ecosystems: STOP ECOCIDE Oil spills. Deforestation. Chemical contamination. Soil depletion. Overfishing. Air pollution. Microplastics… harm to nature which is widespread, severe or systematic. [PAGE 1 OF 2] Climate breakdown and mass extinction are the direct result of ECOCIDE, IN 3.5 MINUTES committed by many of the world's biggest corporations over decades. We know the dangers – at current rates of destruction we are heading for an uninhabitable Earth. We know the costs – to nature and humanity, and especially to those cultures and WHAT DOES ECOCIDE MEAN? populations who are least consulted, most impacted and most exploited, and of course to all future generations. It means mass damage and destruction of ecosystems - Oil spills. Deforestation. Chemical pollution. Soil damage. Overfishing. Air pollution. We know the solutions – renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, circular economy… Plastic waste… harm to nature which is widespread, severe or systematic. and we have the ingenuity and ability to implement them. ECOCIDE, committed by many of the world's biggest corporations over With all this knowledge, WHY does ECOCIDE continue? Quite simply, because it's allowed to. decades, has led directly to climate breakdown and mass extinction. CEO’s have an obligation to maximise profit by any lawful means. We know the dangers: And right now, ECOCIDE is not a crime. It's as simple as that. if we continue as we are, the Earth will no longer be able to sustain human civilisation in the near
    [Show full text]
  • Interim Pre-Pandemic Planning Guidance: Community
    Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance: Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States— Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions NT O E F D M E T F R E A N P S E E D U N A I IC TE R D S ME TATES OF A OF TRAN NT SP E O M R T T R A A T P I O E N D U N A I C T I E R D E M ST A ATES OF Page 2 was blank in the printed version and has been omitted for web purposes. Page 2 was blank in the printed version and has been omitted for web purposes. Interim Pre-Pandemic Planning Guidance: Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States— Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions February 2007 Page 4 was blank in the printed version and has been omitted for web purposes. Page 4 was blank in the printed version and has been omitted for web purposes. Contents I Executive Summary ........................................................................ 07 II Introduction .................................................................................. 17 III Rationale for Proposed Nonpharmaceutical Interventions .......................... 23 IV Pre-pandemic Planning: the Pandemic Severity Index ............................. 31 V Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions by Severity Category ................... 35 VI Triggers for Initiating Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions ................... 41 VII Duration of Implementation of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions.......................... 45 VIII Critical Issues for the Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions ................... 47 IX Assessment of the Public on Feasibility of Implementation and Adherence ..... 49 X Planning to Minimize Consequences of Community Mitigation Strategy ....... 51 XI Testing and Exercising Community Mitigation Interventions ....................
    [Show full text]
  • Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More
    Manuscript Accepted at Personality and Individual Differences Pandemic Practice: Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More Psychologically Resilient During the COVID-19 Pandemic Coltan Scrivner1,2 John A. Johnson3 Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen4 Mathias Clasen4,5 1. Department of Comparative Human Development, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, US 2. Institute for Mind and Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 3. Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University 4. Department of English, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University 5. Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University Corresponding Author: Coltan Scrivner [email protected] 1 Abstract One explanation for why people engage in frightening fictional experiences is that these experiences can act as simulations of actual experiences from which individuals can gather information and model possible worlds. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, was associated with greater preparedness for and psychological resilience toward the pandemic. Since morbid curiosity has previously been associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also tested whether trait morbid curiosity was associated with pandemic preparedness and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic and that fans of “prepper” genres (alien-invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) exhibited both greater resilience and preparedness. We also found that trait morbid curiosity was associated with positive resilience and interest in pandemic films during the pandemic. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to frightening fictions allow audiences to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real-world situations.
    [Show full text]
  • Pandemic: Impact Guide for Players
    Pandemic: Impact Guide For Players The Pandemic games are a series of browser-based strategy games created by Dark Realm Studios. There are four games in the series: Pandemic, Pandemic II, Pandemic: Extinction of Man, and Pandemic: American Swine. The original Pandemic was inspired by real-life pandemics such as SARS and H5N1 (avian flu); players are given control of an infectious disease and directed to wipe out humanity as quickly as possible. Pandemic II and Pandemic: Extinction of Man build further on Pandemic's model, providing more control over the creation and maintenance of the disease while adding new difficulties and countries better equipped to eradicate any potential threats. The fourth game, Pandemic: American Swine, puts the player in charge of the United States government's response to an epidemic of swine flu. How to use this guide: Players – We’ve identified several interesting or important themes in the game. As you play through, reflect on your play. How have you experienced these themes? Are there other important ones present in the game? What kind of impact does your play allow in the larger world? Answer the questions we’ve provided – but feel free to add more at www.gamesandimpact.org. Warning: Questions contain some spoilers about the games. Key for game-specific questions: Pandemic [I] Pandemic II [II] Pandemic: Extinction of Man [EoM] Pandemic: American Swine [AS] Theme: Public Health A public health crisis is the core event of the Pandemic series: a disease has emerged, and is spreading through the populated areas of the world. The disease jumps across transit routes and through public utilities, while governments attempt to control the disease's spread before it infects and kills citizens of their countries.
    [Show full text]