Since March, Palestinian protesters have been launching incendiary kites and balloons over the border into Israel. The ensuing fires have affected agricultural areas and nature reserves, with no end in sight protected areas are the conflicts’s latest environmental casualty.
Pollution is killing more people in Afghanistan each year than armed violence. While efforts have been made to build environmental governance since 2003, addressing the health and environmental threats posed by pollution in the face of insecurity, high levels of corruption and with limited financial resources remains an enormous challenge.
The latest report by the International Law Commission in its ongoing study into the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts deals with environmental protection in situations of occupation. This blog looks at the new draft principles, their basis and argues that they should be strengthened.
In March, the Yemeni government called for UN help in dealing with a potentially serious oil pollution threat in the Red Sea. The case has highlighted the wider threat from oil pollution in Yemen’s civil war and the risks it poses to the Red Sea’s ecology.
Since 2015, a number of different actors have published data on the environmental impact of the conflict in Ukraine. Doug Weir and Nickolai Denisov take a look at the different methodologies that have been used to monitor environmental harm, their findings, and what the studies tell us about how monitoring could be improved.
A new PAX report, ‘Living under a black sky’, reveals how the conflict in Iraq has left a toxic trail of destruction,which could have severe health consequences for communities and reconstruction efforts.
With what has been called a ‘landmark’ resolution, the UN Security Council has established a team to investigate international crimes committed by ISIL in Iraq. Will the investigative team also seek accountability for the victims of its scorched earth policy and oil fires? On which criminal provisions could the team of experts rely to address conflict-related environmental harm?
The Iraqi government has tabled a draft resolution aimed at addressing pollution caused by armed conflicts and terrorist operations for this year’s meeting of the UN Environment Assembly. The overarching theme of UNEA3 is pollution, and the universal membership body is the UN’s primary decision-making body on the environment. Doug Weir takes a look at the scope of the initial text and looks ahead to the negotiations.
