Environmental protection from military damage : an international law perspective

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to explore the protection which international law affords to the natural environment against the threats posed thereto by military operations. It shall be seen how the environment has historically always suffered the repercussions of military activities, particularly in times of conflict. Indeed Chapter One presents a historical overview of instances in the World's calendar, where the environment was used as a tool in the hands of military commanders. In the aftermath to large scale conflict, particularly, in the period following the Second Indochina War, the realisation dawned on the international community that, some form of legislative intervention was required to restrain the conduct of military hostilities and preserve the well-being of not only the civilian population, but also, of the surrounding environment. Chapter One shows how international law developed specialised branches to deal with the issue of environmental protection from military damage. Chapter Two presents international humanitarian law (IHL) as that branch which emerged for the specific purpose of applying within a military context. It shall be seen how IHL protects the environment either directly as an end in itself or indirectly, through the protection of other legitimate subjects. International law has a vast collection of international agreements and customary law instruments relating to the preservation of some aspect of the environment such as the atmosphere and the oceans. These instruments, in great part, arose in response to accidents such as major oil spills and not in the aftermath to conflict. Hence, their relevance within a military context cannot be presumed. Indeed, Chapter Three shall focus on the contribution, if any, of peacetime international envir With the creation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), international law has come to recognise the effectiveness of penal law in sanctioning 4 military damage to the natural environment. Chapter Four, shall look at how international law developed criminal enforcement mechanisms to secure effective environmental protection. The fulcrum of this thesis is to identify whether those sources that exist at the international law level to shield the environment from military destruction, are in practice, effective to this end. In Chapter Five it shall be seen how the existing instruments are defective and solutions shall be identified to remedy the existing gaps in the system. Finally, on a concluding note, Chapter Six shall re-visit the salient conclusions that were reached in the various chapters. There were several other issues which the author could have explored in this thesis but there were word limit restrictions to observe.