Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: The British East India Company on Trial

Exhibition Preview and Evidentiary Lecture: 30 October 2025 5:00pm-7:00pm

Location: Blenheim Walk Auditorium, Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

Click here to book your place for the exhibition preview and evidentiary lecture

The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) is a tribunal that prosecutes climate crimes by states and corporations. In the latest iteration of the CICC, the case against the British East India Company (EIC), demonstrates how the legal, economic, and ideological systems established by the EIC remain alive and active today. It affirms the claim that climate crimes are in fact colonial crimes. The CICC is now touring the evidence, with its latest presentation taking place at Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University.

The CICC is a project by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal founded in 2021 that stages public hearings in immersive installations functioning as a court, to prosecute intergenerational climate crimes committed by states and corporations acting concertedly. These hearings address crimes of the past, present and future, reflecting the intergenerational impacts of climate crimes and the continued colonisation of ecologies and communities.

Following public hearings organised against Unilever, ING Group, Airbus and the Dutch State (Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 2021) and against Hanwha Group, Doosan, POSCO Group and the Republic of Korea (Gwangju Art Museum, 2023), the latest chapter of the CICC, commissioned by Serpentine Galleries, took the form of a specially appointed court in London. There witnesses were interrogated regarding the crimes committed by the British East India Company (founded in 1600), highlighting the enduring interconnectedness of colonial and climate crimes that continue to shape our devastating present and future.

Non-human agents — in this case, plants that played a pivotal role in the colonial and industrial projects of the British Crown and the East India Company — served as both evidence and witnesses in the trial. The audience present was tasked with acting as public jury members. In Leeds, these key non-human witnesses gather in a monumental installation of lightboxes, combined with a new video work that compiles key testimony from the trial against the British East India Company.

During the inaugural opening event, D’Souza will introduce the legal framework of the CICC and the case against the British East India Company, and be questioned by legal scholars, historians and activists. The public is invited to participate as members of the jury and vote on the materials presented.

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.