Destroying the environment is
also a war crime
War and environmental destruction go hand in hand
By Steven Freeland
The Canberrra Times, November 6, 2008
go to original
| |
31 years after the
fall of Saigon, a number of “hot spots”
in Vietnam are still contaminated with levels
of dioxin as much as 100 times above international
standards. Depleted uranium is a major concern
in Iraq today.
Source: Spusa.com |
On November 5, 2001, the United Nations declared
November 6 of each year as the International Day for
Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in
War and Armed Conflict.
History has been witness to many deliberate acts
to destroy or exploit the natural environment to achieve
military goals. In the 5th century BC the retreating
Scythians poisoned the water wells in an effort to
slow the advancing Persian army. Roman troops razed
the city of Carthage in 146 BC and poisoned the surrounding
soil with salt to prevent its future cultivation.
The American Civil War saw the widespread implementation
of ''scorched earth'' policies.
In August 1945 the United States detonated atomic
bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in massive
loss of life and environmental destruction. During
the Vietnam War, the US implemented Operation Ranch
Hand, to devastating effect, to destroy vegetation
used by its enemy for cover and sustenance, using
chemicals such as Agent Orange.
More recently still, who can forget the haunting
images of more than 700 burning Kuwaiti oil well-heads
which had been deliberately ignited by retreating
Iraqi forces during the Gulf War in 1991 a scene that
was likened to Dante's Inferno. Over the following
10 years the Saddam regime built barriers and levees
to drain the al-Hawizeh and al-Hammar marshes in southern
Iraq, an area some believe is the site of the biblical
Garden of Eden. This effectively destroyed the livelihood
of the 500,000 Marsh Arabs who had inhabited this
unique ecosystem.
Acts of significant and deliberate environmental
destruction, exploitation and contamination during
armed conflict have continued in more recent times,
including the use of cluster bombs and weapons containing
depleted uranium by US and British forces in Iraq.
At this moment the world is witnessing a continuing
humanitarian and environmental catastrophe in the
western region of Darfur in Sudan, which has seen
the poisoning of water wells and drinking water installations
as part of a deliberate government-supported strategy
by the Janjaweed militia to eliminate or displace
the ethnic black Africans living in that region.
Actions such as these demonstrate how the deliberate
despoliation of the environment can have catastrophic
effects, not only on human populations, but also in
ecological terms. For example, nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons, as well as having the potential
to kill many thousands of people in a single attack,
have effects that may persist in the environment,
in some cases indefinitely. The devastating effects
of environmental warfare can continue long after the
conflict is resolved, jeopardising or destroying the
lives and livelihoods of those reliant on the natural
environment and increasing numbers of refugees. There
are currently 37.4 million refugees from conflicts,
according to a 2008 report by the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, an increase of about three million over
the previous year.
Moreover, access to natural resources or the lack
of access can itself be the trigger for conflict.
In both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti,
the United Nations Environment Program has reported
that environmental damage has been a major cause of
conflict. Some five million people were killed during
the 1990s in armed conflicts relating to the exploitation
of natural resources, and a quarter of the 50 active
armed conflicts in 2001 were largely ''motivated''
by resources. One of the underlying tensions between
Israel and Syria is access to water. A water expert
has recently predicted that, in regions initially
experiencing low-level conflict, the risk of escalation
to full-scale civil war approximately doubled immediately
after a year of abnormally low rainfall.
All of these examples illustrate how armed conflict
that is at least partially driven by disputes over
natural resources can result in very significant destruction
to the natural environment. Not only have recent conflicts
in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo
and Liberia been fought over natural resources, but
the exploitation of those resources for example, timber
and diamonds in turn funded the combatants to acquire
weapons.
This has given rise to the concept of ''asset wars'',
where economic interests in relation to natural resources
commercialise and prolong conflict. The misuse of
natural resources, such as diamonds, or the scarcity
of resources, such as water, serves to fuel the conflict,
which often becomes a self-perpetuating process.
Environmental degradation and exploitation can thus
be both a cause and a consequence of armed conflict.
Internal disputes over scarce resources can give rise
to social upheaval and tensions within a country,
which may motivate combatants in a conflict to consider
''targeting'' the environment.
Many States now view their environmental concerns,
including resource conservation and sustainable development,
in ''strategic'' terms. This thinking will only increase
as the world quite rightly becomes concerned with
the broader state of the global environment, including
the disastrous effects of climate change.
Despite all of this evidence, however, environmental
damage and exploitation is still largely regarded,
as rape once was, as an ''unfortunate but inevitable''
consequence of war. It is, of course, true that war
and armed conflict are inherently destructive of the
environment, but that is no reason to allow leaders
to deliberately or recklessly target the environment
in order to achieve their military goals. Just as
international law has made great strides forward by
classifying rape during armed conflict as a war crime
(or even genocide in certain circumstances), a body
of standards is developing in relation to the environmental
effects of proposed military actions.
But much more needs to be done. The issue is highly
politicised but of crucial importance. There is an
ongoing need to ''upgrade''' these standards to the
level of an international war crime, in the light
of the destructive capability of weapons technology.
It is increasingly clear that ''crimes against the
environment'' need to be enshrined as a part of the
mechanisms of international criminal justice, in order
to better protect our most cherished assets for future
generations.
Steven Freeland is Associate Professor of International
Law, University of Western Sydney and a Visiting Professional
at the International Criminal Court, The Hague. These
are his personal views.
