Introduction
As Karl Marx has historically propounded, conflict is a devastating constant of human society. But beyond the evident loss of life and sociological and psychological damage, it churns a poison that affects all of humanity slowly yet just as deeply. War, especially in contemporary times, imparts a heavy cost to the environment, compromising the availability of resources, and ultimately endangering life on Earth.
Recognising the resultant environmental degradation, states and international institutions have made efforts to reverse the resulting damage through conferences, treaties, and legislation. The Blog aims to analyse and address the impact of International Law while offering suggestions for the way forward.
International Law: Enforceability and Relevance in War Times
Jeremy Bentham coined the term international law. It refers to a body of legal rules, norms, and standards that command authority between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors. Simplistically phrased, it governs relations between sovereign states. With its jurisdiction stretching through the peripheries of nation-states, individuals, international organisations, and other entities, international law has been ever-evolving from its traditional structure, its growth tracing upon fresh needs of fresh times. However, it is not enforced properly, mainly owing to the absence of a proper law enforcement agency, as currently there is neither a standing body of international law enforcement officers nor strong political support for creating one.
International law is significant, especially during war times. War and conflict situations are dealt with by conventions, wherein the Four Geneva Convention and its precise protocols provide primary regulations.
War and Its Repercussions on The Environment
Conflict situations and environmental degradation share an increasingly complex relationship- providing the genesis of a vicious cycle wherein they magnify each other.
To analyse, one can circle to the American war against terror since the 9/11 attacks. Upon analysis, its relevance is clear, especially because the American military has released up to 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases since 2001. Similarly, the Vietnamese in their twenty years of civil war have destroyed 50% of the mangrove forests of their land.
The Middle Eastern scenario provides another facet of the same tale. Syria, a region of high natural hydrologic variability, continues to suffer since its civil war. The Syrian water resources are over-burdened under political pressure, with its total renewable water availability around 16.8 km^3 yr^-1 of which nearly 60% originates outside its borders. The country’s major straws of resources are all shared by neighbouring countries which leads to international tension alongside a predictable spread of diseases in such regions. By mid-December, 2023, the United Nations had registered more than sixty thousand cholera cases, which also spread to Lebanon with figures ranging up to fifty-four hundred.
This is not a natural consequence of human exploitation, but an unprecedented outcome of international conflicts, for which most regions are largely unprepared.
Significance and Efforts Made for The Environment
The right to a healthy environment is a human right, recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees by adopting resolution 48/13. Though this resolution is another step towards a cleaner and more sustainable environment, the right is greatly affected during war times. Hence, enforcement is a pivotal issue that needs to be addressed.
In the Russia-Ukraine War, the resolutions of the European Parliament on January 19 and June 15, 2023, recognised the link between warfare and environmental damage, condemned Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam as ecocide and a war crime, and expressed support for international investigations and the European Union civil protection mechanism.
From Article 35(3) of the 1977 Aditional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Convention it is prohibited to use any means of warfare which are intended to or may cause long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment.
Furthermore, Rule 45 of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC’s) Customary International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Study establishes that due regard must be given to the protection and preservation of the natural environment in warfare. This rule also prohibits to use of the destruction of the natural environment as a weapon of warfare.
In May 2022 the International Law Commission (ILC) adopted the final version of its recommended twenty-seven Draft Principles and sent them to the General Assembly for final consideration. Many of these Draft Principles are already rooted in international law, while others provide best practice guidance.
Criticism and Suggestion on The Current Structure
The present international law, primarily the IHL, Protocol I, and the Geneva Convention aims to tackle the issue but is diseased with several shortcomings. While we see the presence of a framework of laws, there persists a very real difference between the existence of law and effective enforcement of law. A popular look at it tells how despite the sanctions on Russia concerning the Russo-Ukrainian war, it has done little to prevent Russia from causing more environmental degradation through its military.
The report titled ‘Environmental Rule of Law’ by the United Nations Environment Program states that despite the efforts and treaties of the past decades regarding environmental law no benefits have been reaped, centrally due to lack of enforcement.
The laws that currently govern the situation stand outdated with the introduction of modern chemical, and biological weapons and drones, such as in the case of Vietnam with its chemical herbicides and other methods of de-forestation. To take another example, the current Israel-Palestine war is causing severe environmental degradation, wherein the use of white phosphorus has led to severe degradation in air quality. Hence, the first course of action starts with the renewal of these structures.
Although several treaties have been made for nuclear weapons, the prominent being the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they also suffer from the abstention from several big players (Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel). Hence, the law-making process must focus on inclusivity for more authoritative enforcement.
Very few peace accords address environmental degradation, and even fewer are effectively enforced. However, the Colombian peace accord serves as a strong example, as it acknowledges the protection of the environment. Therefore, there is a pressing need for the proper formation and enforcement of peace accords that address environmental degradation.
Throughout the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei’s (UNISFA’s) 10-year deployment, climate change has undermined efforts to ensure human security, with limited consideration in Security Council resolutions or mission communications. The case of Abyei underscores the importance of integrating climate change with conflict analysis, understanding local dynamics, and addressing local resource conflicts for regional peace and security. It highlights that laws, during formulation, lack comprehensiveness, which can be easily integrated through sufficient consultation with local representatives. It, therefore, calls for diversity in legislation.
International sanctions that are presently enforceable are focused on countries with a heavy influence on their present standing in the international context, similar to how the nuclear treaties were attempted to be enforced on third-world countries. However, it is observed that these sanctions are focused on the countries, not their militaries; in other words, they are region-specific, not sector-specific. It is realised through a creative comparison of data that if the militaries of the world were to be compiled to be treated as an actual entity, it would cause more pollution than countries as popularly debated as Russia or Japan. These sanctions should be formulated by levelling region-diverse countries on a more equitable playing ground majorly for its basic requirements concerning its geographic conditions.
While this may be criticised by shooting light upon how influential international politics is in matters of military maintenance, it must be borne in mind that making this factor a guiding principle would equate to committing the same mistakes that most politically driven and ecologically deprived countries are making (Somalia or Vietnam). Recognising the dire need of the times, such decisions, though inconvenient for the first world, are indispensable.
The introduction of reparation in international law is necessary to address environmental damage caused by states. This concept is reflected in Article 34 of the 2001 Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARISWA), which calls for “full reparation for the injury” through “restitution, compensation, and satisfaction.”. Such reparation agreements should be included in the post-war armistice agreements, mandating the countries to restore the damage that they caused while at war. With innovation at a more fundamental scale, an impactful change can indeed be hoped for.
Conclusion The dynamics that the present international law finds itself in, is a complex one. But a touch of concern is not the call of the hour either. A compromise has to be made through which the present institutions formulate these laws from a serious perspective of enforcement. The ever-growing issue of environmental degradation which is in a dangerous sync with the ever-heating world politics is not a matter of power play anymore. The need for a strict separation between the two is something that the world needs to realise with utmost priority for preserving the basic standard of life that the current generation enjoys for future generations.
This blog is written by Anushk Garg, Student 2nd year, NLIU