The serious and widespread damage caused to the environment by the activities of trans-national companies has given rise to a debate on the legal instruments to be used in order to ensure their international criminal responsibility, one of which is the introduction of ecocide into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Although ecocide is already criminalised in some national legal systems, it is not yet covered by the Rome Statute, since it only punishes damage to the environment in the context of war crimes. However, the criminalisation of ecocide in international criminal law is not free from objections, as there is no consensus on its definition and it is not easy to formulate it according to the principle of criminal legality. Furthermore, this criminalisation may also not be in line with some of the fundamental principles of the International Criminal Court. This can be seen in the controversy between ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, in the absence of criminal liability for legal persons and in the lack of specialisation of judges and prosecutors in environmental matters. For this reason, it is not excluded that environmental protection can be pursued through alternative mechanisms, some of which are non-criminal in nature.