Military personnel may come across a number of natural and anthropogenic environmental health risks during training, domestic operations and overseas deployment. The response has been to seek to integrate data on environmental risks and exposures into health monitoring programmes. Could these systems help inform approaches aimed at monitoring the risks to civilians from toxic remnants of war?
When considering how norms could be developed to ensure that conflict pollution is properly addressed, it is worth examining peacetime norms and standards for military contamination. This blogs takes a look at the approach taken in Australia.
Syria’s oil industry has begun to be targeted by the US. Military policies indicate that the environmental consequences of the strategy are low on the agenda but the move looks set to have direct and indirect impacts on Syria’s environment and people.
NATO’s presence in Afghanistan included 1200 properties, from major airbases to small forward operating bases. Environmental oversight was mixed and the Afghan national authorities had limited capacity for investigating contamination or other forms of damage. Furthermore, the bilateral agreements between Afghanistan and major NATO contributing nations provided very limited scope for environmental redress.
This blog investigates the worrying lack of regulation for the Private Military and Security Contractors who have played an increasingly significant role in recent conflicts. Lack of regulation and oversight has lead to serious incidences of environmental harm and with it harm to the health of military personnel, contractors and communities.
This blog considers the use and importance of screening systems for chemicals to identify potential health and environmental risks, in doing so it reviews examples from the civilian and military sphere but finds that standards don’t fully consider the protection of civilians.
