International Law Review

International Law Review

Protection of the Environment in Armed Conflicts From the Perspective of the International Law Commission and the International Committee of the Red Cross

Document Type : academic

Author
Pouria Askary
ATU
10.22066/cilamag.2022.249663
Abstract
The environment is the silent victim of war, which, its destruction, brings a flood of catastrophes to human beings and human societies. Developments in science have made this issue even more apparent, and hence the question of protection of the environment in relation to Armed Conflicts has repeatedly been at the forefront of the concerns of environmentalists as well as International Humanitarian Law scholars. In this respect, in 2019 the UN International Law Commission, with the approach of codifying and progressively developing International Law, published the first reading of its draft principles on protection of the environment in relation to Armed Conflicts. Moreover, in 2020 the International Committee of the Red Cross has updated its 1994 guidelines to take a fresh look at the rules of International Law, and in particular Humanitarian Law in this area. The present article, has focused on the outcomes of these two important projects with a comparative approach and seeks to answer the question of the extent to which new researches conducted by the ILC and the ICRC have been able to achieve their goals of creating a more effective legal protection system for the environment in times of Armed Conflicts. The findings of the article show that the innovations contained in the above-mentioned documents can normatively provide more protection for environment in Armed Conflicts.
Keywords
Environment
Armed Conflicts
International Law Commission
International Committee of the Red Cross
International Humanitarian Law
International Environmental Law
International Human Rights

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    - Websites

    1. <https://globalclimate.crisisgroup.org>, last seen 6th August 2022.

  • Receive Date 25 December 2021
  • Revise Date 21 February 2022
  • Accept Date 21 February 2022