Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: The British East India Company on Trial
A project by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal, commissioned by Serpentine Ecologies. Ambika P3, London, 4-24 April 2025.
Book tickets here
Opening programme: 4th April, 6-8pm, with interventions by Radha D’Souza, Jonas Staal, Lucia Pietroiusti and more.
CICC Hearings (see detailed schedule below): 5th-6th April
CICC School: 8th-24th April
CICC Exhibition: Thursdays-Sundays, 1-6pm, until 24th April
The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) is a project by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal that stages public hearings in immersive installations functioning as a court, to prosecute intergenerational climate crimes committed by states and corporations acting together. These hearings address crimes of the past, present and future, reflecting the intergenerational impacts of climate crimes on ecologies and communities.
This newly commissioned chapter of the CICC consists of a specially appointed court constructed within the former concrete hall of Ambika P3 in London. It was in London that the East India Company was founded in 1600, and where the corporate entity would subsequently shape the city in its own interests and image. The court will interrogate witnesses regarding the crimes committed by the British East India Company, highlighting the interconnectedness of colonial and climate crimes that continue to shape our devastating present and future.
Non-human agents will act as evidence and witnesses in the court, in this case in the form of plants that played a pivotal role in the colonial and industrial projects of the British Crown and the East India Company. The audience present will have the task to act as public jury members.
Putting the British East India Company on trial, 425 years after its founding and 168 years after its dissolution in 1857, expands notions of intergenerational justice. It raises questions about reparations for crimes that transcend generations and examines how dissolved entities, like the EIC, endure as legal, institutional, and ideological frameworks for extractive capitalism and imperialism, perpetuating ecological collapse.
Following the public hearings, Ambika P3 will host an installation with selected materials from the tribunals in combination with the CICC School: an ongoing programme of lectures, workshops, screenings and trainings to deepen the relationship between artistic and legal imaginaries in the struggle for climate justice.
Schedule
Saturday 5 April, 11:00 – 14:45
Case I: The East India Company and the British Crown: Partners in Crimes Against Ecologies and Communities
The first session of the CICC appointed Special Court on the East India Company will hear evidence on the ‘Company Raj’ – the rule of the East India Company and the British Crown in South Asia and elsewhere. This era served as the launching pad for colonial crimes against ecologies and cultures around the world. Witnesses will present evidence on the continuation of the policies and practices of the Crown-Company alliance by numerous later-day corporation-state alliances that have expanded and that continue to commit crimes against ecologies and communities globally. The Advocate-Prosecutor will present expert evidence on the legal, institutional, policy and ideological factors that have enabled corporate-state alliances in the past and present to perpetuate crimes against ecologies and communities globally.
Saturday 5 April, 15:45 – 19:30
Case II: The Indigo Trade, the East India Company and the British Crown: Establishing Agribusiness, Destroying Interdependent Ecologies
Witnesses will present evidence on the indigo trade, one of the most profitable trading ventures of the East India Company that brought wealth and prosperity to Britain. Witnesses will focus on forced agricultural practices introduced by the Company. In addition witnesses will provide evidence on contemporary agribusiness to show how the practices of the East India Company-British Crown alliance have expanded and deepened around the world. The Advocate-Prosecutor will provide expert evidence on how the laws, institutions, policies and practices established by the Company-Crown collaborations in the past continue on expanded scales in new forms to cause devastations in the present with impacts on the future.
Sunday 6 April, 13:00 – 16:45
Case III: Trading with People’s Lives: East-India Company, the British Crown and the Violent Severance of Land-People Relationships
The CICC tribunal will hear evidence on the East India Company’s crimes committed in collusion with the British Crown, focussing on forced and indentured labour and its impacts on land-people relations. Witnesses will present evidence detailing the transformation of slave trade into the indentured labour systems and its impacts on agrarian communities and the environment, notably deforestation and monocropping, in both home and host countries. In addition evidence will be presented on the continued exploitation of labour around the world by present day states and corporations and the impacts of extractivism on communities and environment including involuntary migrations and climate crises. The Advocate Prosecutor will show how the laws, institutions, policies and practices established by the East India company and the British Crown became vectors for comparable practices today and their implications for future.
Following the hearings, from 8 April the CICC Court will transition into the CICC School, which will host an ongoing series of public programmes involving activists, artists and academics focussing on the role of alternative artistic and legal imaginaries in climate justice struggles.
Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Ecologies
In partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam (long term partner), Law Development & Conflict Research Group, CREAM, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, Creative Scotland, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Create Ireland.
With special thanks to Mondriaan Fund and Jessica Sweidan
Curated and Produced by: Lucia Pietroiusti, Daisy Gould, Isobel Peyton-Jones, Serpentine, with Eva Speight
Research Assistants: Daniel Voskoboynik and Muhammed Ahmedullah
Coordinator and Producer, Studio Jonas Staal: Nadine Gouders
Architect: Paul Kuipers
Graphic design: Remco van Bladel
Photo and video documentation: Ruben Hamelink
Construction, Studio KunstWerk: Michael Klinkenberg and Niklas van Woerden
An Ecological Futurisms initiative at CREAM, Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster. Led by Neal White, Matthias Kispert, Roshini Kempadoo
Venue managers, Ambika P3: Niall Carter and Eleftherios Dimoulias
The inaugural edition of CICC (Amsterdam, 2021) was commissioned by Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The CICC – The Law on Trial (Seoul, 2022) was produced by Drifting Curriculum and Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and co-produced by Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The CICC – Extinction Wars (Gwangju, 2023) was co-commissioned by the Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Project and Framer Framed, Amsterdam, hosted by Gwangju Museum of Art in partnership with Arts Council Korea (ARKO), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands), Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AfK), the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Korea, and the Mondriaan Fund.