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2 S. Asian J. Env't L. & Pol'y 33 (2024)
Do States Have External Obligations to Protect the Natural Environment during Armed Conflicts?

handle is hein.journals/shasnjel2 and id is 34 raw text is: Do States Have External Obligations to Protect the Natural Environment during Armed Conflicts? Mohammad Mamunur Rashid' Abstract Ecologically, the natural environment does not have a territorial limit and military attack by parties to the conflict may destroy the environment of the neutral states. The existing practice of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) obliges the states which are parties to the given armed conflicts and have ratified the relevant applicable Convention. For example, Geneva Conventions (GC), or Additional Protocols (AP) apply solely to the states which are parties to the concerned armed conflict and have ratified the GC or AP. Therefore, if the states are not involved in the conflict, obligation of GC or AP will not give rise to those states. Along with that, if the states have not ratified the GC or AP, the responsibility under these international agreements will not come into effect for the concerned state. This article explores if existing law may be reinterpreted to decipher external obligations of the states to protect the natural environment. After examination, it concludes that no convincing evidence has been found to externally oblige states, though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) opened the scope for renovation. Finally, this article finds that customary international law (CIL) i.e., no harm and precautionary principles may be referred to for imposing external obligations on states but the application of them during the armed conflict has not yet been settled. 1. Introduction The World Wars I and II endangered the environment catastrophically, however, neither the 1929 nor the 1949 Geneva Conventions (GC) referred to the environment as a matter of legal protection during the armed conflict. After the Vietnam War, concern over the protection of the natural environment was intensified where both Russia and the United States (US) came into an agreement that environment specific law is to be adopted. Resultantly the Convention on Environment Modification (ENMOD) has been adopted. From the same point of view, the Additional Protocol I (AP I) also accommodated the environment as a significant issue of consideration during armed conflict. Nowadays, modern technology in warfare has increased the magnitude of environmental disasters on one hand and evidence of the extraterritorial impact of ecological destruction during war (i.e., forest) is scientifically well-founded on the other. Parties to the armed conflict of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Columbia, and Myanmar destroy components of the natural environment in order to weaken the enemy or prevent the enemy to acquire natural resources. In these conflict areas, the destruction to the natural environment includes, water 1 LL B (Hons) (DU), LL M (Frankfurt), Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Eastern University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, email: mrashid~deasternuni.edu.bd South Asian Journal of Environmental Law and Policy - Vol 2 - Issue 1 33

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