Article36 is exploring the concept of the full protection of civilians, protection not constrained by the limits of international humanitarian law, such as its focus on immediate harms. This paper, prepared for their study, explores the environmental consequences of conflict and situates them within this evolving concept.
Narrowly interpreting the relationships between nature and security and prioritising the national security of a few risks repeating past environmental securitisation mistakes, doing little to address the drivers of biodiversity loss. This briefing explores what a more holistic approach to nature, peace and security should encompass, and offers recommendations for its development.
What needs to be in place for the idea of environmentally sustainable conflict recovery to take hold? Anna Ackerman and Doug Weir examine why sustainable recovery processes are needed and whether lessons from Ukraine could be applied to other conflict areas.
Is there a pattern to fires on military sites across Europe? And is it changing in response to the climate crisis and increasing military spending? Students Sara Niknam, Adam Krid and Ritchie Davelaar from Utrecht University’s Open-Source Global Justice Investigations Lab consider the evidence.
The process of environmental mainstreaming in mine action has been underway for several years. Anna McKean and Jonathan Walsh explain how a new action plan for the Convention on Cluster Munitions would both reflect and encourage this process.
CEOBS’ WISEN tool can help systematically identify and map conflict-linked environmental harm. Lydia Millar explores how this data could be used to improve accountability at local, national and international levels, and the challenges of holding those responsible to account.
Rebekah Harries introduces WISEN WATCH: our new citizen science tool that allows anyone to help us remotely track and assess wartime environmental damage.
Countries enduring conflict are hit harder and suffer more deaths when disasters such as storms and earthquakes strike. Rebekah Harries asks whether disaster risk reduction frameworks doing enough to acknowledge this link between conflict and disaster risk?
