In her new book, deliberately written to be both accessible and provocative, Catriona McKinnon argues for a new international crime of ‘postericide’ committed by intentional or reckless conduct fit to bring about human extinction. Postericide could be committed by acceleration of the climate crisis, escalating risks of nuclear conflict, AI gone rogue, and in many other domains in which powerful subsets of humanity are acting in ways that shock the normal conscience of humanity. In this book, McKinnon asks: Why should international criminal law be expanded to include a new crime to register postericidal wrongdoing? Who should be prosecuted for this crime? And what's wrong with human extinction anyway? The book will be published by MIT Press in 2026/7 in the series: https://mitpress.mit.edu/series/one-planet/

Content list of the book:

• Chapter 1: Perilous Times                                                                                     
• Chapter 2: Humanity Endangered                                                                 
• Chapter 3: Why We Should Act to Prevent Human Extinction                                                                      
• Chapter 4: A New International Crime                                                       
• Chapter 5: Culprits and Control                                                                      
• Chapter 6: The Power of Postericide

Catriona McKinnon’s main research interest is currently in the area of climate justice and climate ethics. Her research adopts a broadly liberal approach which reflects her other research interests in contemporary liberal political philosophy (especially Rawls), and the theory and practice of toleration. In her work, she takes seriously what we owe to future people in the face of the climate crisis. Although most of her work has been in 'pure' political philosophy, she is increasingly engaged in transdisciplinary work on climate justice in order to better inform climate policy.

She is the co-director of RENEW: Renewing Biodiversity Through a People-in-Nature Approach. This five year programme funded by NERC (£12m) brings together academics from all Faculties at Exeter, and dozens of external partners, to research and implement solutions to the UK's biodiversity crisis. Before coming to Exeter she was the Director of the Leverhulme Doctoral Programme in Climate Justice, and Director of the Centre for Climate and Justice, both at the University of Reading.