World Future Society
Global Strategies
Forum
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
AS BOTH CONSEQUENCE
AND CAUSE OF ARMED CONFLICT*
by Warwick A. Fox, Michael
Renner and Arthur H. Westing
SUMMARY:
Armed conflict and human-generated environmental degradation are two of the biggest
threats to the future well-being of humanity. These two threats are also part of a vicious
circle, each exacerbating the other. This paper describes what can be done about
mitigating these problems and breaking the vicious circle.
1. Foreword
The age-old scourge of armed conflict (warfare), with the stakes now massively raised
in the face of nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and the emerging global
scourge of anthropogenic (humanly caused) environmental degradation, represent perhaps the
two biggest, though potentially controllable, threats to the health and well-being of
humankind — and of many other creatures as well — in the twenty-first century.
To make matters worse, these two problems can interact in such a way as to feed off each
other in a vicious circle, each exacerbating the other. This paper addresses these twin
scourges and what might be done to mitigate their often intertwined effects.
2. Overview of two intersecting problems
To understand the relationship between the global environment and armed conflict, it will
be useful first to summarize separately the status and dynamics of each.
2.1. Environmental degradation worldwide
Unsustainable discharges of waste gases into the atmosphere and large numbers of species
extinctions throughout the world are but two of the most obvious indicators of the
increasingly deleterious impact of humankind on the global biosphere. In fact, humans are
utilizing all of the world's major renewable natural resources — agricultural soils,
forest trees, range grasses, and ocean fishes — at rates ever more greatly exceeding
their natural abilities to renew themselves. Humans are introducing pollutants — not
only gaseous wastes, but also liquid and solid wastes — into the environment at
levels increasingly beyond the point at which they can dissipate or decompose to
insignificance. And humans are encroaching ever more drastically upon what remains of
relatively wild nature throughout the world. Suitable land for agriculture and other human
development, as well as fresh-water supplies, are becoming ever more scarce commodities
throughout the world. Indeed, human arrogations of land, fresh water, and other natural
resources continue to rise, representing a direct competition with wildlife. In 1850,
humans and their livestock accounted for but 5% of total terrestrial animal biomass (an
essentially finite amount); a century later this value had reached about 10%; currently it
is just over 25%; and within 10 years such displacement (i.e., replacement) by humans of
the terrestrial wildlife will have risen to 30% or more.
The various above-noted indicators of increasing levels of environmental degradation
worldwide began to significantly exceed biospheric sustainability (i.e., exceed the
globe's human carrying capacity) roughly 40 or 50 years ago. The noted degradation
(lack of sustainability) can be attributed to a combination of increasing human numbers
(these despite rising numbers of malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, and AIDS fatalities);
increasing human needs, desires, and technological abilities; and a reluctance by human
society to deal with the problem in regionally and globally unified and otherwise
responsible fashions, such reluctance exacerbated by the immense and growing North-South
disparities in wealth, and further exacerbated by the immense and growing numbers of
displaced persons (refugees).
2.2 Armed conflict worldwide
Human society has sorted itself into a huge array of social groups, large and small, more
or less ephemeral, and only partially mutually exclusive. These many social groups derive
their coherence and level of permanency from one or more affinities, among them especially
geographical, political, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic. The most clearly
defined and delimited of those social groups are the sovereign states (countries; nations)
of the world, today approximately 193 in number. However, both within and overlapping
those 193 or so tenaciously sovereign states there exist many hundreds of additional, less
formal social groups enjoying varying levels of coherence, power, permanency, and
delimitation. The often divergent interests of those many formal and informal groups
inevitably lead to disputes (non-violent conflicts) between them. Fortunately for human
society, the overwhelming majority of those inter-group disputes (whether interstate or
intrastate) are resolved peaceably, that is, without resort to armed conflict. However,
throughout human existence a relatively modest fraction of them have been settled by a
resort to armed conflict.
Nowadays, considerable numbers of armed conflicts of several to many years' duration
are always in progress somewhere or other in the world. By some measures, their numbers
have actually been going up somewhat since the end of World War II until about a decade
ago. But despite the increasing number of sovereign states since then, the number of
interstate (international) armed conflicts has been declining in recent decades while the
number of intrastate (non-international) armed conflicts has been rising. In fact, about
163 of the 193 sovereign states consider it necessary to devote a significant portion of
their precious resources (material, financial, and intellectual) to maintaining regular
armed forces on a continuing basis. They do so in order to deal with threats to their
stability and tranquility, whether those be external or internal. On top of that, there
are the internal social groups sufficiently dissatisfied with their existing lot to
establish and support irregular (insurgent) armed forces that engage in the intrastate
armed conflicts alluded to earlier, either with the regular armed forces of their state or
with other internal irregular armed forces.
In summary, most sovereign states and the social groups within them are at peace most
of the time, addressing their inter-group disputes non-violently, but nonetheless continue
to consider armed conflict an acceptable means of solving any seemingly intractable
dispute or peaceably unattainable goal, as evidenced by the fact that merely since World
War II the regular armed forces of more than 100 sovereign states have engaged in armed
conflict.
3. Environmental degradation as a consequence of armed conflict
Armed conflict is by its very nature deadly and destructive, sometimes dramatically so.
Most of the environmental degradation caused by armed conflict is of an incidental or
ancillary nature, but some of it is intentional, with these two categories of damage being
outlined separately below. However, it should be noted at the outset that the ultimate
levels of environmental degradation depend not so much on whether they were brought about
intentionally or unintentionally (or even whether the weapons employed were old-fashioned
or modern), but rather on the objectives, the will, and the tenacity of the parties
involved.
3.1. Collateral (unintentional) degradation
Unintentional environmental degradation by armed conflict begins with the preparation for
such action, being associated with: (i) establishing military fortifications and other
military facilities; (ii) equipping and supplying armed forces with weapons and other
military needs, and, in turn, disposing of these once they become obsolete or otherwise
unwanted; (iii) training armed forces and testing the weapons they use; and
(iv) deployment of armed forces nationally, in other sovereign states, and in areas
beyond any national jurisdiction. Then during armed conflict unintentional (collateral)
environmental degradation can result from: (i) the often profligate employment of
high-explosive munitions against enemy personnel and matériel; (ii) the use of tanks and
other heavy off-road vehicles; (iii) the construction of base camps, fortifications, and
lines of communication; and (iv) the often heavy exploitation by armed forces in the field
of timber, food, and feed, both within the theater of military operations and beyond. For
example, in the Kosovo (NATO-Yugoslavian) Conflict of 1999 the demolition of numerous oil
refineries and fuel storage facilities had a substantial collateral impact on the local
environment and public health. The aftermath of armed conflict often results in yet
further forms of unintentional environmental degradation.
3.2. Deliberate degradation
The pursuit of armed conflict often involves the intentional destruction of field or
forest as a specific means of denying to the enemy the benefits of such components of the
environment. The benefits being denied to the enemy include access to water, food, feed,
construction materials, and access to forest cover or sanctuary. Forests can be devastated
for hostile purposes by various means, among them (e.g., during the Second Indochina War
of 1961-1975) by spraying with herbicides, by the use of heavy tractors equipped with
special forest-clearing blades, by saturation bombing, and at certain times and places, by
the setting of self-propagating wild fires — all such actions leading secondarily to
the decimation of wildlife as well as to soil erosion. Area denial, barrier, or channeling
operations via the employment of land or sea mines result in especially pernicious
impacts, particularly on the rural human environment. Moreover, the residual mines are
often significantly augmented by a battlefield legacy of other unexploded ordnance,
especially in terrestrial operations in which cluster munitions had been employed by the
belligerents. The employment of biological, chemical, or especially nuclear weapons is
likely to have an extraordinarily severe impact on the environment.
A number of important rivers flow through more than one sovereign state, providing an
opportunity for an upstream belligerent to divert or befoul the waters before they reach a
downstream enemy with which it is engaged in armed conflict, a potentially major social
and environmental calamity in an arid region. In some battlefields (e.g., during the Gulf
War of 1991) it is possible to release into the environment large quantities of oil for
hostile purposes, which in liquid form lead to terrestrial or marine pollution, and if
ignited lead to air pollution.
Under certain conditions, it is possible to manipulate some component of the natural or
built environment for hostile military purposes in a way that is intended to result in the
release of dangerous pent-up forces. This sort of military effort — which is often
referred to as 'environmental warfare' — becomes especially tempting when the hostile
manipulation involves a relatively modest expenditure of effort (i.e., of triggering
energy) leading to the release of a substantially greater amount of directed destructive
energy. Environmental manipulations of particular concern with reference to magnified
destructive potential involve attacks on: (i) fresh-water impoundments (e.g., during the
Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, World War II, and the Korean War of 1950-1953); (ii)
nuclear power stations, resulting in the release of iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90,
and other radioactive elements (recall Chernobyl, 1986); and (iii) industrial facilities
that could release dangerous chemicals (recall Bhopal, 1984).
4. Environmental degradation as a cause of armed conflict
It is evident that armed conflicts can lead to environmental problems in terms of both
resource scarcity and environmental degradation. However, those same environmental
problems, whether caused by armed conflict or by other means, are increasingly understood
to play an important role in generating or exacerbating disputes that might lead to armed
conflict. Depleting water resources, over-exploiting fisheries, degrading arable land,
decimating forests, and altering the natural balance of ecosystems from wetlands to coral
reefs are among the principal processes of anthropogenic environmental change. Climate
change is likely to augment these challenges.
4.1. General considerations
Although several transboundary environmental disputes exist and some of them could
escalate in the future, environmentally induced armed conflict is far more likely to occur
within states, rather than between or among them. Thus, China, India, Kazakstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Spain, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the USA, and Uzbekistan are among
those states in which growing water scarcities have caused considerable internal disputes
and, in a few cases, even violent confrontations.
Nonetheless, the waters of the Jordan and Litani Rivers did play a role in the Middle
Eastern armed conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbours. And conflicting claims
over water resources have been cited as a possible cause of future interstate armed
conflicts, for example, over the Nile waters among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, or over the
Ganges and Brahmaputra waters between Bangladesh and India. However, should a downstream
state be militarily weaker than the upstream state, then it is unlikely to challenge its
neighbour in a bellicose manner over water allocation issues. In any event, riparian
states may well conclude that a diplomatic solution — working out an agreed plan to
share available water resources — is preferable to a violent solution. But as rising
water needs in the coming decades put ever growing pressure on available sources, it
becomes far from clear that non-violent means will be pursued by states that find
themselves in close water rivalry with their neighbours.
To the extent that environmentally induced armed conflicts are primarily taking place
within states, they confirm the overall pattern of contemporary armed conflict alluded to
earlier (see Section 2.2). Thus, of 110 armed conflicts active during the decade
1989–1999, 94 were internal (intrastate) armed conflicts; another 9 were principally
internal, but also featured intervention by foreign forces; and only 7 (6% of the total)
were of an interstate nature.
It is important to keep in mind that there is no such thing as a purely 'environmental'
armed conflict. A perusal of available case studies suggests that there has been only one
instance in which environmental degradation has been the principal immediate cause in
triggering hostilities. The operation of a copper mine on the Pacific island of
Bougainville, part of Papua New Guinea, in the 1970s and 1980s caused such massive damage
(while the economic benefits accrued primarily to the central government and foreign
investors) that the native island population decided to launch a sabotage campaign against
the mine. This developed into a full-fledged guerrilla war that shut down the mine and
lasted for several years. Although secessionist aspirations had existed on Bougainville,
these only rose to the forefront after the environmental devastation had triggered
hostilities (with the guerrilla front declaring independence in 1990).
Typically, environmental issues join other factors in generating armed conflict. A
multitude of pressures and instabilities threatens to shred the social fabric of many
societies, primarily in the non-industrialized world. A toxic brew of growing disparities
in wealth, persistent poverty, job insecurity or unemployment, population growth,
resurgence of infectious diseases, and environmental degradation is provoking social
stress, discontent and polarization — leading to political strife in many states and
to devastating violence in some. Even in the case of Bougainville, economic considerations
(inadequate offers of compensation for the damage wrought) and ethnic differences came
into play.
4.2. Environmental factors vis-à-vis armed conflict
The principal pathways in which environmental issues become relevant for disputes leading
to armed conflict include: (i) disputes over access to renewable resources; (ii) disease
burdens that overwhelm communities' ability to cope and that tear apart fragile social
fabrics; (iii) the repercussions of flows of 'environmental' refugees; and (iv) the
unequal nature of adverse impacts and burdens. Each of these four factors is next
considered in turn.
(i) Disputes over access to renewable resources: Disputes leading to armed
conflict may arise over access to renewable natural resources such as water, forests, and
arable land. This may be the result of a tightening of supplies (depletion or degradation
of natural resources), an unsustainable increase in demand (owing to population pressures
or increased per capita consumption), distributive inequities, or a
combination of those factors. Non-industrialized states, particularly those whose
economies are heavily geared toward agriculture and other sectors that depend directly on
the productivity of the natural resource base, are most immediately affected by
environmental problems. There, the needs and interests of contending groups tied closely
to the land — farmers, nomadic pastoralists, ranchers, and resource extractors —
are often at odds and remain unreconciled.
(ii) Disease burdens that overwhelm communities' ability to cope and that tear apart
fragile social fabrics: Environmental degradation — the unraveling of the earth's
complex ecological safety nets — also causes numerous hardships, such as rising
disease burdens and faltering food production. Indeed, societies across the planet are
confronting a resurgence of infectious diseases. Environmental factors play an important
role in human susceptibility to and transmission of diseases such as malaria, diarrheal
diseases, and acute respiratory infections. Worldwide, close to one-fourth of all
disabilities can be traced to such factors as polluted air or water and unsafe food. The
spread of microbes that carry infectious diseases is facilitated by growing international
travel, food trade, and refugee and other human population movements. Also, human
encroachment on tropical forests brings people into closer proximity to insects and other
animal vectors carrying unknown diseases; the building of large-scale dams encourages the
spread of water-breeding disease vectors such as mosquitoes and snails; and climate change
enables some diseases and associated vectors to extend their geographic reach and spread
to previously unaffected areas.
Malaria, for instance, has staged a lethal comeback, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
It has been riding on the coat-tails of environmental degradation (logging, dam- and
road-building, and the warmer temperatures and increased precipitation coming to be
associated with climate change) plus the social upheaval caused by armed conflicts and
refugee flows. It has been additionally helped along by the emergence of drug-resistant
disease strains.
In some regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic and economic
impacts of infectious and respiratory diseases are of sufficient magnitude to overwhelm
fragile health systems, cause large-scale economic dislocations, and trigger social
upheavals.
(iii) The repercussions of flows of 'environmental' refugees: The deterioration
of forest watersheds, wetlands, and other ecosystems and their associated eco-services has
additional fateful consequences: human communities have less protection against extreme
weather events. The decay of ecosystems sets the stage for more frequent and more
devastating 'un-natural' disasters — natural disturbances made worse by human
actions. The past 50 years have seen a dramatic increase in the human impact of natural
disasters, which have increasingly been abetted by the human hand. More than
2 thousand million people worldwide were affected by disasters in the 1990s, and
the economic toll of natural disasters during the 1990s alone was more than that of the
previous four decades combined. Moreover, the expected climate change is likely to
increase the actual worldwide incidence of natural disasters.
Environmental degradation may in some cases be sufficiently extreme to undermine the
habitability of a given area and to compel the local population to pack up and leave in
search of new homes. Those people are in effect being turned into 'environmental' refugees
by the inability to sustain their livelihoods. Indeed, growing water scarcity, soil
erosion, desertification, and other environmental calamities are now contributing to the
uprooting of large numbers of people, though reliable (or uncontroversial) numerical
estimates do not exist. Often, worsening environmental conditions combine with adverse
social circumstances to compel people to move: for instance, unequal land distribution
forces many peasants in non-industrialized states to cultivate steep slopes, areas cleared
in the rainforest, or other unsuitable patches of land. The soil productivity of these
areas tends to be exhausted relatively swiftly, forcing people to move on — to even
steeper slopes, deeper into the rainforest, into existing protected natural areas, or
perhaps to cities, giving up agriculture entirely.
Also, many people are being displaced by large-scale infrastructure projects. During
the 1990s, tens of millions of people worldwide lost their homes to make way for dams,
roads, logging operations, and other projects. In most cases, they took the brunt of the
adverse impacts while not slated to share in any of the economic benefits that may arise
from such resource exploitation.
The repercussions from climate change are likely to sharply boost the numbers of those
affected. If substantial climate change becomes a full-blown reality, it will compound
present environmental challenges by raising sea levels, shifting vegetation zones, and
changing precipitation and wind patterns. If heavily populated coastal areas are inundated
and crop harvests in some regions are decimated by more frequent droughts, to cite just
two possible consequences, there could be dramatic increases in food insecurity.
A flood of 'environmental' refugees may find it difficult to find a new livelihood in
other rural areas or already-crowded cities and may even clash with unwelcoming host
communities. The influx of people into another region or state can impose a considerable
burden on the receiving area in terms of increased competition over land, water, jobs,
communal facilities, and social services. This is especially the case if the host state's
economy is stagnant or in decline or its government is corrupt and indifferent to the
needs of its people, or if the influx is sudden and massive. All too often, newcomers are
suspected of taking away jobs, irredeemably altering the local culture and customs, or
being generally unwelcome competitors. In many urban settings, the struggle over scarce
services is particularly intense. Although population movements do not inevitably bring
about armed conflict, the potential for trouble is present. This is particularly the case
where political leaders or challengers are eager to capitalize on stirring up xenophobic
(anti-foreigner) resentments.
(iv) The unequal nature of adverse impacts and burdens: Another potential cause
of armed conflict is that the burdens resulting from environmental degradation will be
felt highly unevenly by different social groups and communities. This uneven impact may
well reinforce existing social and economic inequities or deepen ethnic fault lines, and
therefore heighten patterns of polarization in society. As cases from India, Mexico,
Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, and other states show, poorer communities, minority
groups, and indigenous peoples typically bear the brunt of adverse environmental change,
particularly such change triggered by oil drilling, mining, logging, or large-scale dam
and irrigation projects. For instance, the Sardar-Sarovar dam and irrigation project in
India's Narmada valley will primarily benefit a small number of wealthy farmers, while the
burdens — flooding of villages and arable land, decimation of local fisheries, and
loss of ancestral lands and cultural monuments — will fall on hundreds of thousands
of poorer peasants.
It is not a given that environmental degradation or its repercussions will cause armed
conflict. But they do sharpen hardships and burdens, heighten the desperation of those
affected, and reinforce the 'zero-sum' nature of many disputes. Because many societies
fall short on dispute-prevention and mediation capacities, and political leaders (or their
challengers) often find that they can gain influence or strengthen their power by fanning
the passions of their constituents, it is very likely that environmental factors will play
an increasingly important role in triggering or aggravating disputes that lead to armed
conflict.
5. Approaches to mitigating the two intersecting problems
The mitigation of environmental degradation and armed conflict can be approached from
legal, institutional, and educational directions, both individually and collectively.
However, the sections to follow will make it clear that it becomes a special challenge to
make those approaches actually work in practice.
5.1. Legal and institutional approaches focusing on environmental degradation
The degradable environment (the global biosphere) consists of two major, though
inextricably interlocking, components: its living or biotic portion (plants, animals,
including humans and their livestock, and microörganisms); and its non-living or abiotic
portion (air, water, soil minerals, etc.). To some extent, the global biosphere functions
as one coherent system, but at the same time it consists of numerous more or less discrete
subsidiary systems and sub-systems. Superimposed upon these many ecological systems that
blanket the earth are two major political divisions: the territorial realm (currently
divided into some 193 sovereign states); and the extra-territorial realm (those domains
beyond national jurisdiction, including especially the atmosphere, the high seas, the
celestial bodies, outer space, and perhaps Antarctica). The foregoing should make it clear
that international environmental treaties are indispensable in addressing those many
environmental problems that cross one to several or more international boundaries.
The international instruments meant to prevent or mitigate environmental degradation
are thus aimed at one or more of the above-mentioned components, systems, and realms or
their subdivisions. As such, those instruments are variously bilateral, regionally
multilateral, or universally multilateral in scope. Thus, bilateral treaties exist that
serve to protect some of the many smaller ecological systems under divided national
jurisdiction, that is, those that straddle the 220 thousand kilometers or so of
shared state boundaries. Among these (to name but a few in summary form) are: 1971+1972
Australia/Indonesia (United Nations Treaty Series = UNTS 14122+14123); 1974 Saudi
Arabia/Sudan (UNTS 13605); and 1974 France/Spain (UNTS 14591). At the next higher level of
consolidation — and in some ways the most important one — there exist a number
of regional multilateral treaties, meant to protect such ecogeographical regions under
multiple national jurisdiction as: the Mediterranean Sea, via, for example, the 1976
Mediterranean Pollution Convention (UNTS 16908) plus its 1982 Protected Areas Protocol
(UNTS 24079); the whole of Africa, via the 1968 African Conservation Convention
(UNTS 14689); the Nordic region, via the 1974 Nordic Environmental Convention (UNTS
16770); and the South Pacific region, via the 1986 South Pacific Natural Resources and
Environment Convention (not UNTS registered). Various of the Regional Seas Programmes
sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme are also worth lauding in the
regional context, prominent among them their resulting 1976 Mediterranean, 1978 Kuwait
[Persian Gulf], 1981 South-east Pacific, 1982 Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and 1983 Wider
Caribbean Action Plans.
The best example of an approach to protecting the environment of an extra-territorial
domain is the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (UNTS 31363). Among other applicable ocean
instruments, there is the 1973+1978 Marine Pollution Convention plus Protocol [MARPOL]
(UNTS 22484). One aspect of the atmosphere is meant to be protected by the 1992 Climate
Convention (UNTS 30822) plus its 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases (not as yet
in force); another is via the 1985 Ozone Convention (UNTS 26164) plus its 1987 Protocol,
as amended in 1990 and 1992 (UNTS 26369); a relevant instrument, unfortunately of
only regional scope, is the 1979 European Long-range Air Pollution Convention
(UNTS 21623). Regrettably, there exists as yet no comprehensive Law of the Air
comparable in scope to the Law of the Sea. And, if the following domain be considered
extra-territorial, one can add that the marine living resources surrounding Antarctica are
protected via, for example, the 1980 Antarctic Marine Living Resources Convention [CCAMLR]
(UNTS 22301).
A sizable number of universal multilateral treaties address one component or other of
the global biosphere. The most important of these regarding its biotic component overall
are the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES]
(UNTS 14537), the 1979 Migratory Animal Convention (UNTS 28395), and the 1992
Biological Diversity Convention (UNTS 30619). Other instruments deal with particular
categories of the biota, for example, the 1972 Antarctic Seal Convention (UNTS 16529) and
the 1973 Polar Bear Agreement (not UNTS registered). The most important of the
multilateral treaties regarding the abiotic component of the global biosphere are meant to
protect: important fresh and salt waters, via the 1971 Wetland Convention
(UNTS 14583); the soil, via the 1994 Desertification Convention (UNTS 33480); and the
atmosphere (see above). One of the key instruments in this category that embraces both the
biotic and abiotic components is the 1972 World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention
(UNTS 15511).
Altogether, there are now in force more than 200 regional and universal multilateral
environmental treaties. Although the number of these international treaties has risen
sharply in recent decades, environmental diplomacy is now more often devoted to
strengthening the existing ones rather than drafting new ones (often through the mechanism
of additional protocols). Implementation and enforcement are major challenges, indeed. In
this regard, it seems almost superfluous to note that all sovereign states must, in
parallel with submitting to any international treaty, enact domestic legislation and
associated administrative mechanisms that will ensure the fulfillment of the accepted
obligations. However, what must without fail be noted here is that although most of the
international environmental treaties are in principle applicable during both times of
peace and armed conflict (being for the most part silent on that distinction), regrettably
it seems to be widely accepted implicitly among the states parties that this body of law
is operative only in times and places of peace. Indeed, most of the marine environmental
protection treaties go so far as to explicitly exempt naval vessels from their strictures
even in times of peace.
5.2. Legal and institutional approaches focusing on armed conflict
Five general approaches via international law can be distinguished that serve to prevent
or minimize environmental degradation resulting from armed conflict. These are for the
most part applicable to interstate armed conflicts, though some serve an intrastate
function as well, which is alluded to below as applicable. And one might well point out
once again that in order for military constraints on environmental degradation to have the
chance to become operative, they must be reinforced by domestic enabling legislation and
unambiguously incorporated into the military manuals and rules of engagement of those many
sovereign states maintaining regular armed forces.
The most obvious approach to limiting environmental degradation caused by armed
conflict is to prevent the occurrence or likelihood of armed conflict. Here there exists
the 1928 Treaty for the Renunciation of War (League of Nations Treaty Series = LNTS 2137).
This quite widely adopted, though similarly widely ignored, instrument makes it illegal
for its many states parties to engage in interstate armed conflict. Then there exist the
1899 Permanent Court of Arbitration and the 1945 International Court of Justice, both of
which provide exemplary mechanisms for the settlement of interstate disputes by
non-violent means. It is a tragedy that rather few sovereign states have accepted either
of those institutions on a compulsory and unconditional basis, a deficiency that
undermines the very concept of the pacific dispute resolution they offer. The jurisdiction
that these two courts exercise is over sovereign states. The 1998 International Criminal
Court [the Rome Statute] (UNTS 38544) would have jurisdiction over individuals accused of
war crimes or other crimes against humanity. As to intrastate dispute resolution, again
only a very few sovereign states enjoy the benefits of a sufficiently robust legal system
imbedded in a democratic and non-corrupt matrix of governance to which internal (domestic)
social groups could turn for the adjudication of real or perceived wrongs.
A second approach to limiting environmental degradation caused by armed conflict,
albeit a regional one, is to establish so-called zones of peace within which the world
community of sovereign states (or at least some significant fraction of them) agrees not
to wage armed conflict. A number of such zones do, in fact, exist, among them: Antarctica,
via the 1959 Antarctic Treaty (UNTS 5778); the Svalbard archipelago, via the 1920
Spitsbergen Treaty (LNTS 41); the Åland archipelago, via the 1921 Aaland Island
Convention (LNTS 255); and even outer space, the moon, and other celestial bodies, via the
1967 Outer Space Treaty (UNTS 8843) and the 1979 Moon Agreement (UNTS 23002). A
related approach is to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone, of which a number of such
attempts exist, for example: Latin America plus the Caribbean region, via the 1967
Tlatelolco Treaty (UNTS 9068); the South Pacific region, via the 1985 Rarotonga Treaty
(UNTS 24592); Southeast Asia, via the 1995 Bangkok Treaty (UNTS 33873); the whole of
Africa, via the 1996 Pelindaba Treaty (not yet in force); and the ocean floor beyond
the limits of national jurisdiction, via the 1971 Seabed Treaty (UNTS 13678).
A third approach to limiting environmental degradation caused by armed conflict, or at
least from some potential aspects of it, is to prohibit or limit the use of weapons that
are especially disruptive of the environment. Thus, the use in interstate armed conflict
of chemical or biological weapons is prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol on Chemical
and Bacteriological Warfare (LNTS 2138); and the very possession of biological and toxin
weapons is prohibited by the 1972 Biological Weapon Convention (UNTS 14860), with efforts
under way by the states parties since 1996 to draft a protocol to monitor compliance.
Certain restraints on the use in interstate armed conflict of anti-personnel land mines
are imposed by both the 1981 Protocol II and its 1996 amended version of the 1981
Conventional Weapon Convention (UNTS 22495); and the very possession of anti-personnel
land mines is prohibited by the 1997 Land Mine Convention (UNTS 35597). Tragically, there
exists as yet no multilateral instrument that would prohibit the use (let alone the
possession) of nuclear weapons.
A fourth approach to limiting environmental degradation caused by armed conflict is to
prohibit certain means of armed conflict. The best example here is the constraints on
attacking agricultural areas, dams, and nuclear electric generating stations, both with
reference to interstate armed conflict, via the widely adopted 1977 Protocol I
additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (UNTS 17512), and to intrastate armed conflict,
via the similarly widely adopted 1977 Protocol II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions
(UNTS 17513). More generally, 1977 Protocol I additionally establishes the principle
of prohibiting means of interstate armed conflict that may be expected to cause the
natural environment widespread, long-lasting, and severe damage (however, with those three
obligate damage delimiters not otherwise defined). There also exists a rather ineffectual
restriction on environmental manipulations for hostile interstate purposes, as established
by the relatively unpopular 1977 Environmental Modification Convention [ENMOD] (UNTS
17119). There also exists a modest restriction on the destruction in interstate armed
conflict of forests by fire, via 1981 Protocol III of the 1981 Conventional Weapon
Convention (UNTS 22495). There are as yet no specific restrictions on bombing
(including on the use of cluster munitions) or on the use of tractors for hostile
land-clearing purposes.
The fifth approach to limiting environmental degradation caused by armed conflict is to
prohibit or constrain destruction, seizure, or over-exploitation of natural resources. For
example, destruction or seizure of enemy property is constrained by 1899 Hague Convention
II on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, by its more widely adopted revision, 1907
Convention IV, and by the almost universally adopted 1949 Geneva Convention IV for the
Protection of Civilians in Time of War (UNTS 973). Non-usufructuary exploitation of
such enemy resources as forests and agricultural works during an occupation (i.e.,
exploitation in an environmentally damaging fashion) is prohibited by both 1899 Hague
Convention II and 1907 Hague Convention IV.
Finally, it is important to note that the law of war (of armed conflict), various
components of which were alluded to above, rests on two fundamental premises:
(i) that the right of belligerents to choose methods of warfare is not unlimited; and
(ii) that those military actions not precisely regulated are to be controlled by the
principles of humanity and the dictates of the public conscience.
5.3. Making the institutional and legal approaches work
There is clearly a wealth of international treaties and related instruments that can be
invoked with respect to the protection of the environment. The same can be said with
respect to international treaties and agreements preventing or regulating the conduct of
armed conflict. These observations apply notwithstanding the existence of significant gaps
in both areas, one notable example referred to earlier being the lack of any multilateral
agreement that would prohibit the use (let alone the possession) of nuclear weapons (see
Section 5.2). Unfortunately, most of the numerous multilateral environmental treaties lack
workable enforcement mechanisms, or even any mechanism for monitoring compliance,
rendering them substantially weaker than desired. Similar observations could be made with
respect to treaties regarding the prevention and regulation of armed conflict. Moreover,
as suggested earlier, even where international environmental treaties are respected, they
tend to be set aside in times of armed conflict, and even in regard to matters concerning
the readiness for armed conflict, such as the exemption of naval vessels from most of the
marine environmental protection treaties even in times of peace (see Section 5.1).
A monitoring component for multilateral treaties must be supported because it offers
the opportunity for non-governmental organizations and other citizen groups to publicize
any shortcomings in compliance, which provides a way of applying pressure on recalcitrant
governments. Multilateral non-binding confidence- and security-building measures might be
suggested as a step in the progressive evolution toward multilateral treaties in those
cases where states have not as yet reached the point of wishing to enter into binding
commitments. And the United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development ought to be given more central roles in supporting and
coordinating the multifarious international environmental agreements.
The strength of the commitments that individual governments are prepared to make to the
above policy suggestions will be a function of that quasi-mythical beast known as
'political will'. Political analysts have long noted a robust correlation between a
government's — or at least a democratically elected government's — willingness
to listen to the people (and act on the basis of that information) and the likelihood that
it will be thrown out of office if it does not. It becomes considerably easier for a
government to exercise political will when the alternative is to no longer be the
government in power. In light of these remarks, it seems difficult to overestimate the
importance of the role of informed citizenries in motivating the political wills of
governments with respect to environmental protection and constraints on armed conflict,
which duly leads to the matter of education.
5.4. Educational approaches, both formal and informal
In the context of this discussion, it should be clear that the first set of ideas that
people in general and political leaders and corporate leaders in particular (as well as
other significant social influencers) need to be alerted to is: (i) the very fact that
there does, indeed, seem to be good evidence of a causal link between environmental
degradation and the possibility or exacerbation of armed conflict; (ii) that the causal
arrow runs in both directions; (iii) that environmental degradation and armed conflict can
therefore feed off each other in a vicious circle; and (iv) that, as anthropogenic
pressures upon the environment increase, it is likely that the risk of environmentally
induced or exacerbated armed conflict will also increase.
Many people have hardly thought about these points. Consider the fact that armed
conflict can be a direct cause of environmental degradation. To most people, the
'environment' — including both non-sentient living things and other sentient
creatures that are not human — is just the background against which human armed
conflicts are fought out. The human casualties are what matter; damage to the
'environment' — let alone the suffering of 'innocent bystanders' in the form of other
sentient creatures — is a very distant secondary concern, if that. Likewise, many
people have hardly thought about the fact that environmental degradation has been and is
perhaps increasingly likely to become a precipitating or exacerbating factor in causing
disputes leading to armed conflict. This concern is actually beginning to find its way
into the national strategic thinking of a number of major states, but still remains
outside the sphere of most people's concerns. It is therefore extremely important that the
reciprocal links between environmental degradation and armed conflict are clearly conveyed
to the global population at large not only through the formal channels of education, but
also through the informal ones offered by the various print and electronic media. Whereas
formal education is fundamentally important, it is certainly also the case that the media
exercise a strong influence on the public and thereby also on the political agenda, both
nationally and globally, with respect to natural disasters, humanitarian crises, and armed
conflicts.
The upshot of the environmental-degradation/armed-conflict message for the role of
public education is not merely to alert people to this reciprocal link, but to provide the
educational tools that are necessary to understand it and then to respond to it
constructively. This means that there is a need for widespread education and dissemination
of knowledge with respect to ecological literacy or 'eco-literacy' on the one hand and
non-violent, negotiated forms of dispute resolution on the other hand. Questions
concerning the fundamental principles and forms of non-violent, negotiated forms of
dispute resolution have received much attention in the past. Therefore, the importance of
these matters will simply be underlined here. What has historically received much less
attention is the subject of eco-literacy, and that will be the primary focus here.
Stressing the importance of eco-literacy means prevailing upon governments to institute
educational policies, and the media to disseminate knowledge and discussion, that have the
aim of explaining the basic 'facts of life' with respect to the interlinked and
interdependent nature of life on earth, and of discussing the nature of individual and
collective human responsibilities in the face of those facts of life. There are several
key aspects to this. First, it is important for people to understand, at least in broad
terms, the sheer scale of anthropogenic pressures upon the planet together with the
present and likely future consequences of those pressures. This inevitably means
considering the ways in which a range of interacting factors contribute to these
anthropogenic pressures. Foremost among these factors are the roles of population size and
growth, levels and patterns of consumption, and technological capacity (for both
environmental good and ill). Reflecting upon those interacting factors should lead
different populations, and different groups within those populations, to conclude that
they have different kinds of capacities and responsibilities with respect to reducing
anthropogenic environmental pressures.
The second, albeit closely related, thing that eco-literate citizens need to understand
is that environmental problems do not respect national borders. (The same goes for people
who have no choice but to escape from intolerable environmental problems and who become
'environmental' refugees in order to survive.) Major environmental problems (such as those
of climate change and sea-level rise caused by global warming, ozone depletion, and loss
of biological diversity) are trans-boundary problems that need ultimately to be addressed
at the level of transnational regional or universal agreements. It follows, then, that
national security increasingly requires global environmental security. Realizing this,
eco-literate citizens will urge their governments to make transnational environmental
agreements and, significantly, to make them work, as suggested earlier (see Section 5.3).
The third point that should be briefly noted here is that education for eco-literacy is
not simply a matter of alerting people to the general message coming from the
environmental sciences, but also of introducing them to a discussion of environmental
ethics. The formal study of ethics has in the past been restricted almost exclusively to
questions regarding human obligations toward other humans (and not necessarily toward all
other humans at that). In contrast, the discussion of environmental ethics — that is,
of human obligations toward or in respect of the rest of the world — has only begun
to emerge since the 1970s in any serious and sustained way. This still emerging area of
inquiry constitutes a most important resource for education in the twenty-first century.
When one thinks of the crucial topic of education and the inexorable nature of
anthropogenic environmental problems, it becomes easy to accept the notion that human
history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. However, there are
grounds here for cautious optimism. As literacy and higher education spread ever more
widely throughout the world, and global communications become ever more pervasive, these
factors might in time lead to a substantial transnational educated elite who would
identify more with their peers in other states than with their local compatriots. Better
educated (and more affluent) people will be more likely to question all aspects of
governmental policy. Formal and informal channels of education have a supremely important
role to play in ensuring that this questioning of governmental policy proceeds from a
combined socio-literate and eco-literate basis. These two channels of education must
therefore be encouraged to play that role.
6. Closing remarks
Several important trends have been noted. Globally, environmental degradation is getting
worse whereas the frequency of occurrence of armed conflict seems not to have fluctuated
substantially during modern times. However, hidden within this latter observation are two
counterposing trends: on the one hand, the number of interstate (international) armed
conflicts has been declining in recent decades — despite the trend toward an
increasing number of sovereign states — while, on the other hand, the number of
intrastate (non-international) armed conflicts has been rising. The pattern of
environmentally-induced armed conflict is consistent with this overall pattern of
contemporary armed conflict. That said, there is a range of reasons to be extremely
concerned about the possibilities of environmentally induced armed conflict in the future.
Foremost among these are: (i) disputes over access to renewable resources; (ii)
environmentally related disease burdens that can overwhelm communities' ability to cope
and that tear apart fragile social fabrics; (iii) the repercussions of flows of
'environmental' refugees; and (iv) the unequal nature of adverse environmental impacts and
burdens.
In response to those challenges, it is of the first importance that all governments be
encouraged to: (i) adopt international agreements on environmental protection as well as
on non-violent dispute resolution; (ii) support innovative measures to make those treaties
work; (iii) honour the wealth of agreements already in force; and (iv) use all of those
agreements so as to also encourage their adoption and use by non-party states. Education
for both eco-literacy and non-violent dispute resolution is likewise of the first
importance, not least in helping to drive the political will of respective governments to
honour the kinds of international agreements to which reference has just been made.
It seems almost superfluous to add, yet necessary all the same, that the 'options' in
regard to proceeding in something like these general ways are decidedly limited. But lest
this sound too ominous, it is worth noting that a source of hope may lie in the very
seriousness of present environmental trends. That is because environmental problems of
global consequence (the continuing loss of renewable resources — and this in the face
of a still growing world population; the continuing loss of biodiversity; and the
inexorable processes of global warming — exacerbated by the continuing and
intertwined instances of armed conflict) are now beginning to occur on a human time scale
rather than a geological or evolutionary time scale. A great many people globally might
therefore start taking the growing environmental problems and the continuing social
violence personally. And when people do that, a great many changes — admittedly for
good or ill — can happen remarkably quickly.
* Invited briefing paper for the Forum for Nobel Peace Laureates (Freycinet,
Tasmania, 17-20 May 2002) of the World Institute for Nonviolence &
Reconciliation.
About the Authors
The authors are Warwick A. Fox (Senior Lecturer in
Philosophy, Centre For Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1
2HE, United Kingdom, wafox@uclan.ac.uk), Michael Renner (Senior Researcher,
Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org), 25 Treasure Rd, Riverhead, NY 11901,
USA, mrenner@i-2000.com), and Arthur H. Westing (Consultant,
Westing Associates in Environment, Security, & Education, 134 Fred Houghton Rd,
Putney, VT 05346, USA, westing@sover.net).
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