The EU military sector’s carbon footprint
In a new report, CEOBS and SGR reveal for the first time the level of carbon emissions from the largest EU militaries and the EU military sector. This blog summaries our findings.
What Myanmar’s coup could mean for its environment and natural resources
The military coup in Myanmar is likely to have severe and reverberating effects for the country’s environment and natural resources argues Thiri Shwesin Aung, undoing recent progress in environmental governance and sustainable development.
Investigating the environmental dimensions of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
Report providing initial analysis of the environmental dimensions of the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabach, and which considers environmental propaganda, the use of incendiary weapons, and water and mineral resources.
Brexit, chemicals legislation and the UK defence sector
Peacetime environmental legislation can help reduce the use of hazardous materials in conflicts. In this blog Linsey Cottrell and Doug Weir examine the impact of EU REACH legislation on the European defence industry, and the implications of a hard Brexit for efforts to reduce the polluting footprint of the UK MoD.
The (other) war against whales
There is a war being waged against whales, and it is being fought with noise, and it has left scientists and conservationists concerned about the potential impact of military noise on the wider marine ecosystem as a whole. Are naval activities bound by environmental norms, or will the damage continue in the name of national security?
The environmental consequences of the use of armed drones
To date, debate over the implications of the growing use of armed drones has focused on human rights, on the expansion of the use of force into new contexts, and on the imbalances created by the newfound ability to project violence at a distance. Doug Weir and Elizabeth Minor consider the environmental dimensions of the use of drone warfare. They find the literature to be largely absent of considerations over the environmental and derived humanitarian impacts of drone operations, and so this blog, should be viewed as a starting point for efforts to assess the environmental consequences of the use of armed drones.
Whose responsibility is it anyway? Environmental obligations in the nuclear ban treaty
We’re just over halfway through the negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons and, while some campaigners and states seem generally happy with the progress being made on the draft text, there are too few voicing concerns that its environmental dimensions have been neglected. This matters because the treaty is intended first and foremost as a humanitarian instrument, and yet protecting fundamental human rights requires that the environment that people depend upon is also protected.
Do the ILC’s draft principles on remnants and data sharing reflect state practice?
With new legal principles on the table governing obligations for the remediation of toxic remnants of war, and to ensure data sharing on environmental risks, we take a look at the case of depleted uranium use in Iraq. The US and UK were reluctant to accept responsibility for clearance, and differed markedly on data sharing and cooperation with the Iraqi authorities and UN system.