.jpg)
Paper Details
Paper Code: AIJACLAV3SP012023
Category: Research Paper
Date of Submission for First Review: March 9, 2023
Date of Publication: December 29, 2023
Citation: Dr. Vijeta Dua, “Sustainable Development and Impact of Modern Warfare on the Environment: Russia-Ukraine Crisis", 3, AIJACLA, 161, 161-172 (2023), <https://www.aequivic.in/post/sustainable-development-and-impact-of-modern-war-fare-on-the-environment-russia-ukraine-crisis>
Author Details: Dr. Vijeta Dua, Assistant Professor in Law, Dr. Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University, Lucknow
Abstract
Warfare adversely affects soldiers and civilians alike, both physically and emotionally. There are no real victors in wars. Death, injury, sexual violence, malnutrition, diseases, and disability are some of the most threatening physical consequences of war, along with numerous emotional consequences. Wars are a threat to humanity and the ecosystem in which we survive. The environmental impacts of warfare themselves vary greatly. Some international armed conflicts may be brief but highly destructive. Some civil wars may last for decades but be fought at low intensity. People, place and their mode of waging the war strongly influence the environmental impact of a conflict. The Russia-Ukraine war, has put the environment at the extreme risk. Mother earth has already reached the brink of destruction due to the ill effects of climate change. In such a situation, the whole world has been shaken by the fear of the use of nuclear and biological weapons. If this happens then the world will have to face a terrible devastation. Over the past 150 years, international law and principles related to war and armed conflict have evolved to protect the civilians, infrastructure and the environment. In the current situation these protections are proved to be insufficient, international constraints are too weak and inadequately enforced. The present paper is a doctrinal study of the everlasting effects of human warfare over the ecology and the biodiversity of the earth. The fear of the use of the chemical weapons and its possible outcomes will also be discussed along with few solutions in order to strengthen the International environmental law.
Key Words: Environment, Warfare, Biological weapons, Humanity, Ecosystem
Introduction
Pythagoras said, “As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
When human beings, the most evolved species on this Earth trigger war and themselves suffer, there is a massive cry. Everyone suffers–from infants, to adults, to the weak, sick, and aged. War always brings calamity and trouble. it is a miserable thing. It kills and harms soldiers and civilians. It destroys infrastructure, cultures, and communities. It worsens poverty and development challenges. It damages and cripples vital ecological and environmental resources.
“The war will never be over, never, as long as somewhere a wound it had inflicted is still bleeding,” Heinrich Böll, German Nobel Prize winner for literature, characterised the long-term effects of wars[1]. War-wounded victims often suffer with the physical injuries for decades. Often, they have to learn to live with mutilations, having been blinded or deafened.
The psychological effects, too, have an impact on the everyday lives of the survivors. Fear and insecurity resulting from daily experiences of war whether as perpetrators or victims leave traces and symptoms can go until post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety.
Apart from the physical and psychological aftermaths of war upon the human beings, one thing which is absolutely ignored is the harm to the ecosystem in which we live. In order to enjoy and lead a peaceful healthy life, one needs to have a clean and healthy environment.
As human development increased in complexity, progression from mechanical to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons have damaged the ecosystems and environment. Human warfare has also been documented as having a significant influence on the biosphere across a range of ecological scales.[2] Health impacts of conventional and unconventional war range from physical and mental injuries, and loss of life in the hundreds to millions. According to Principle 25 of UN conference on environment and development- Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible.[3] Therefore, the activities of the humans which impact the environment needs to be regulated through laws and sanctions.
International Environmental Law involves the whole world in the protection of a common good to our environment, but the efforts made at the international level from the Stockholm Conference to the Paris Agreement seems to have failed in stopping the ambitious states from extenuating their inhumane deeds. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the brutal strategy of seeking to bombard cities into submission, in part through targeting civilian infrastructures. Since the invasion began, Russian forces have used explosive harmful weapons with wide-area effects in large, populated areas. Russian airstrikes have cut off heat, water, and energy for many urban residents.[4] Amid this, the fear of the use of biological weapons in the war has terrified the world and environmentalists. This paper is an effort to study the historical events of warfare affecting the climate and environment, its after effects over the humanity and the eco-system, environmental effects of Russia-Ukraine war, failure of the international environmental law and suggestions for a stronger law.
Environmental law and modern warfare: History
In 1972, for the first-time countries across the world came together to identify and address environmental problems at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. This event has had a lasting impression on the development of international environmental law. This conference was based upon the central issue of conflict between economic development and environmental protection and it was this conference where the concept of Sustainable Development was shaped and later confirmed at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. At the Stockholm Conference, the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment was adopted which led to further development of international environmental law. As a result of the Stockholm Conference, countries established the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya. Principle 26 of the 1972 Stockholm Declaration mentions about the threat of nuclear weapons towards the humanity:
“Man, and his environment must be spared the effects of nuclear weapons and all other means of mass destruction. States must strive to reach prompt agreement, in the relevant international organs, on the elimination and complete destruction of such weapons"
Apart from the above, many international documents of the UN speak about the protection of humanity and environment from the horrors of war like-
World Charter of Nature 1982[5] in its General Principles mentions that-"Nature shall be secured against degradation caused by warfare or other hostile activities, like-
Chapter 11 of the Brundtland Report[6] is titled as- Peace, Security, Development, and the Environment.
The Biological Weapons Convention 1972, or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use.[7]
The Environmental Modification Convention 1977[8], is an International Treaty prohibiting the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects. The Convention bans weather warfare, which uses weather modification techniques for the purposes of inducing damage or destruction.
In 1992, during the Earth Summit Rio Di Janeiro, two conventions were presented to be signed by national governments: the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Rio Declaration was also established, which reaffirmed the Stockholm Declaration and the Agenda 21 action program, which continued to guide governments and non-state actors in environmental protection activities. In Rio, it was deliberated that human activities, in pursuit of economic growth were responsible for major environmental threats.
The principle 24 of the Rio Declaration says-
“Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development. States shall therefore respect international law providing protection for the environment in times of armed conflict and cooperate in its further development, as necessary.” – 1992 Rio Declaration[9]
Over the long history of human conflicts, a set of ethical standards and legal constraints have evolved to try to limit or ban certain actions, behaviours, and weapons, and to protect certain populations and assets from destruction. However, these laws have largely failed to prevent attacks on basic civilian infrastructure and the natural environment, and they do not appear to impose accountability on governments in a way that limits military operations. Extensive evidence shows the growing effects of armed conflicts on civilians, built infrastructure, and the natural environment
For much of recorded history, scorched earth methods of war caused much devastation and hardship to local populations. An example of this is given in the Mahabharata epic, where the Pandava kings burnt the Khandava-prastha forest to build their capital, causing death and loss of habitat to forest-dwellers and wildlife.[10] The progression of warfare from chemical weapons to nuclear weapons has increasingly created stress on ecosystems and the environment. Specific examples of the environmental impact of war include World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan Civil War, the Kosovo War and the Gulf War.
Vietnam war – The Vietnam War started in 1945 and ended in 1975. It is now entitled a proxy war, fought during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union to prevent the necessity for the nations to fight each other directly. A massive herbicidal programme was carried out, in order to break the forest cover sheltering Viet Cong guerrillas, and deprive Vietnamese peasants of food. The spraying destroyed 14% of Vietnam’s forests, diminished agricultural yield, and made seeds unfit for replanting. If agricultural yield was not damaged by herbicides, it was often lost because military on the ground set fire to haystacks, and soaked land with aviation fuel and burned it. A total of 15,000 square kilometres of land were eventually destroyed. Livestock was often shot, to deprive peasant of their entire food supply. A total of 13,000 livestock were killed during the war.[11]
The chemical agents gave the US an advantage in wartime efforts. However, the vegetation was unable to regenerate and it left behind bare mudflats which still existed years after spraying.[12] Not only was the vegetation affected, but also the wildlife: "a mid-1980s study by Vietnamese ecologists documented just 24 species of birds and 5 species of mammals present in sprayed forests and converted areas, compared to 145–170 bird species and 30–55 kinds of mammals in intact forest." The uncertain long-term effects of these herbicides are now being discovered by looking at modified species distribution patterns through habitat degradation and loss in wetland systems, which absorbed the runoff from the mainland.[13]
World War I- In terms of environmental impact, World War I was most damaging, because of landscape changes caused by trench warfare. Digging trenches caused trampling of grassland, crushing of plants and animals, and churning of soil. Erosion resulted from forest logging to expand the network of trenches.Another damaging impact was the application of poison gas. Gases like tear gas, mustard gas, and carbonyl chloride. The gases caused a total of 100,000 deaths, most caused by carbonyl chloride. Battlefields were polluted, and most of the gas evaporates into the atmosphere. After the war, unexploded ammunition caused major problems in former battle areas. Environmental legislations prohibit detonation or dumping chemical weapons at sea; therefore, the clean-up was and still remains a costly operation.
World War II – The second World War was wide-ranging in its destruction of humans, animals, and materials. The post-war effects of World War II, both ecological and social, are still visible decades after the conflict ended. The environmental impacts of World War II were very drastic. The impacts of conflict, chemical contaminations, and aerial warfare all contribute to reduction in the population of global flora and fauna, as well as a reduction in species diversity.[14] The wildlife, ecosystems also suffer from noise pollution which was produced by military aircraft.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosion- In 1945, at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were applied to kill for the first time in Japan. The blasts caused air pollution from dust particles and radioactive debris flying around, and from the fires burning everywhere. Many plants and animals were killed in the blast, or died moments to months later from radioactive precipitation. Radioactive sand clogged wells used for drinking water winning, thereby causing a drinking water problem that could not easily be solved. Surface water sources were polluted, particularly by radioactive waste. Agricultural production was damaged; dead stalks of rice could be found up to seven miles from ground zero. In Hiroshima the impact of the bombing was noticeable within a 10 km radius around the city, and in Nagasaki within a 1 km radius[15].
Rwanda war- The Rwandan genocide led to the killing of around 800,000 people. The war created a massive migration of nearly 2 million Hutus fleeing Rwanda over the course of just a few weeks to refugee camps in Tanzania[16]. This large displacement of people in refugee camps puts pressure on the surrounding ecosystem. Forests were cleared in order to provide wood for building shelters and creating cooking fires.[17]
Gulf war- During the 1991 Gulf War, the Kuwaiti oil fires were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait. The Gulf War oil spill, regarded as the worst oil spill in history, was caused when Iraqi forces opened valves at the Sea Island oil terminal and dumped oil from several tankers into the Persian Gulf. Oil was also dumped in the middle of the desert. Just before the 2003 Iraq War, Iraq also set fire to various oil fields. Some American military personnel complained of Gulf War syndrome, typified by symptoms including immune system disorders and birth defects in their children. Whether it is due to time spent in active service during the war or for other reasons remains controversial.
World Trade Centre explosion - The so-called ‘War on Terrorism’ by the United States had harmful effects on the environment. On September 11, 2001, terrorists flew airplanes into the buildings of the World Trade Centre. It is now claimed that the attack and simultaneous collapse of the Twin Towers caused a serious and acute environmental disaster. Health effects from inhaling dust included bronchial hyper reactivity, because of the high alkalinity of dust particles. Other possible health effects include coughs, an increased risk of asthma and a two-fold increase in the number of small-for-gestational-age babies among pregnant women present in or nearby the Twin Towers at the time of the attack. After September, airborne pollutant concentrations in nearby communities declined[18].
Sustainable Development and Russia- Ukraine War
The Sustainable Development Goals are an intergovernmental set of aspirations spearheaded by United Nations advocating set of 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues measured through 230 individual indicators.The SDGs aim to significantly reduce all forms of violence and work with governments and communities to find lasting solutions to conflict and insecurity. Strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights are keys to this process, as is reducing the flow of illicit arms and strengthening the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance. Peace, stability, human rights, and effective governance based on the rule of law are important conduits for sustainable development. Four dimensions as part of a global vision for sustainable development are inclusive social development, environmental sustainability, inclusive economic development, and peace and security. We are residing in a world that is increasingly divided. Some regions enjoy sustained levels of peace, security, and prosperity, whereas others fall into seemingly endless cycles of conflict and violence. Only 08 years are left to achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, but the world does not seem to achieve the goals seriously.
“The environment is the silent victim of conflicts,” said Doug Weir, the research and policy director at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a non-profit organization based in Britain. Waging war is an act of destruction. And, studies suggest, it’s one that disproportionately affects the planet’s most important ecosystems. In some cases, environmental destruction is an explicit military tactic. But even when environmental destruction is not deliberate, war can cause deep damage. Evidence of World War II exists that millions of people died within minutes when the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. Not only this, the process of untimely death of people continued till years. Take the example of the Iraq War, Children with disabilities are still being born in the city of Plaza because of the US military's use of bombs made from radioactive elements.
Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, the world’s attention has been focused on the nation’s heavily shelled cities. Ukraine, in an ecological transition zone, it is also home to vibrant wetlands and forests and a large swath of virgin steppe. Environmental pollution is an especially acute concern in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is poisoning the nation’s air, water and soil. Ukraine is full of chemical plants and storage facilities, oil depots, coal mines, gas lines and other industrial sites, which has released enormous amounts of pollution on damage. Environmental-health experts say pollutants released by the continuing assault could take years to clean up while raising the risk of cancer and respiratory ailments as well as developmental delays in children. The war has affected the wildlife, animals are left with contaminated water and scarcity of food. The forests and agriculture have witnessed a major setback with practically no grain produce and wrecked flora and fauna.
Russia is constantly accusing Ukraine for the use of biological weapons in this war. Although, on 26 March 1975, 22 countries agreed to an agreement on the ban on the manufacture of biological weapons under the Biological Weapons Convention and the Geneva Protocol, today it includes 183 countries. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons. In fact, the use of biological weapons has a long history. In ancient times, during the war, the attackers used to mix poison in wells and ponds in enemy areas. There is also evidence that in the 6th century, many people were killed by soldiers of the Asura Empire of Mesopotamia when poisonous substance was injected into enemy areas. Such examples are also found in Turkey and the Mongol Empire.
Today, Moscow claims that 26 biological research laboratories operate in Ukraine with US help. There is a stockpile of dangerous viruses out there that America can use. Not only this, in collaboration with America, 336 biological research laboratories are working in 30 countries. The US has admitted that the Pentagon was funding a biological weapons laboratory in Ukraine. The acceptance of US Secretary of State Victoria Newland is living proof of this allegation.
Biological weapons are considered the most dangerous of all known weapons of mass destruction. They are used to deliberately cause epidemics among humans; destroy the environmental components, including water, air, and soil; and target crops and livestock. Unlike nuclear and chemical bombs, biological bombs are without odour or colour and therefore cannot be detected. Additionally, bioweapons are dangerous because of their effects on untargeted organisms in a military attack, and the clinical symptoms they create may be difficult to distinguish from normal diseases. Bioweapon pathogens remain in nature for several years and are able to survive in harsh environmental conditions.
Obviously, the possibility of the use of these biological weapons in any race of war always worries the opposing side. It affects the body terribly that people become victims of disability and mental illnesses. Bioweapons are not only having direct effects on the genetic biodiversity of indigenous species but also are having direct and indirect catastrophic effects on vital plant and animal communities. Therefore, countries around the world should make a serious effort that the Russia-Ukraine war does not reach the point from which the use of biological weapons arises.
Environmental Accountability of the States
People have the tendency to focus on the direct humanitarian impacts of the war, but actually environmental impacts also have serious humanitarian impacts. The accountability of the subjects of international law for their acts and omissions, and the consequences thereof, is fundamental to the effectiveness and legitimacy of international law.[19] The international environmental accountability of states remains a difficult and controversial topic. With few exceptions, states have not addressed this question in international environmental treaties, neither have international courts been burdened with cases or requests for advisory opinions on questions of environmental responsibility or liability of states.[20] The UN has mostly peacetime legislations at the international level. In general, state responsibility refers to the accountability of a state for a violation of international law and is premised upon an internationally wrongful act which can be attributed to a state.[21] Such internationally wrongful act can arise from the breach of an international legal obligation (“primary law”), established by treaty law (bilateral or multilateral environmental agreements) or by a customary norm of international law (for example the prohibition of environmental harm).[22]
Environmental damage has proved more immediately visible during the war in Ukraine than in other conflicts, with growing awareness of its importance, but that has served only to draw attention to the weakness of the legal framework that should prevent it. At the UN Environment Assembly meeting in Nairobi at the end of February, 108 civil society organisations from across the world highlighted the serious environmental risks the invasion poses and called for support to monitor and address them. A separate open letter by the Environmental Peacebuilding Association calls on the international community to investigate and monitor potential violations of international environmental and human rights law, and to ensure accountability of Russia. United Nations member states attending the UN Environment Assembly’s opening session have raised concerns over the environmental impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Russia called the concern “hypocrisy” [23].
Crimes related to environmental damage have rarely been prosecuted under international law, however, The International Criminal Court (ICC)’s Office of the Prosecutor has announced it will open an investigation into crimes executed in Ukraine. Ukraine is also building a legal case against Russia for alleged environmental crimes committed during its invasion of the country. Government officials are compiling a database, using open-source information and satellite images, of environmental damages in the wake of Russian attacks. They intend to prosecute Russia under international law and seek reparations, for this Ukraine has few precedents to build on. One exception is a case brought by Kuwait against Iraq, for its invasion and occupation of the country in 1990-91.
The work and the decisions of the UN Compensation Claims Commission between 1991 and 2011 provide further guidance in defining environmental damages. obligation to compensate for environmental damage was provided by the UN Security Council when it affirmed Iraq´s liability under international law for any “direct loss, damage, including environmental damage and the depletion of natural resources” occurring as a result of its unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Pursuant to the commission’s decisions, compensation includes: precautionary monitoring to identify and assess long-term risks of environmental damage; assistance costs in environmental emergencies; continuing obligations to protect the environment as well as the obligations of the affected state to mitigate and contain damages; application of valuation methods for ecological harm, such as the “habitat equivalency analysis”; and, requirement that compensation awards need to be spent on environmental remediation and restoration measures.[24]
Final remarks
In 2001 the United Nations declared 6 November of each year as the “International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflicts.” Then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wanted to raise awareness of the devastating ecological and long-term environmental side effects of wars that is just as damaging to humankind as direct violence.
Damage caused by oil, chemicals, landmines or unexploded ordnance often takes a long time before it is repaired; the pollution of water, air and soil threatens the livelihoods of many people and causes entire populations to flee. New technologies, too, such as depleted uranium munitions, threaten the environment. The smallest amounts of radioactive uranium can cause cancer or damage kidneys and other organs. Besides “immediate” side effects, natural resources are sometimes destroyed for tactical reasons. Known examples are the bombardment of oil production facilities in the Gulf wars to damage the economy, the deliberate mining of pastures to rob the enemy of its basic food supply or the use of chemical warfare agents such as Agent Orange that was used by the United States in the Vietnam War as a defoliant and to destroy crop plants. “At times, natural resources are deliberately destroyed as a tactic. But more often than not, the environment along with its stakeholders is simply another innocent victim caught in the crossfire. The poor population, as usual, suffer disproportionately, as they rely most heavily on the environment not only for food but also for medicine, livelihoods, and materials for shelters and homes”, warned Kofi Annan of the environmental effects of war.
In 2022, the world is witnessing another incident of disaster to the environment that has the direct humanitarian impact. Russian invasion on Ukraine has again raised the question as to the seriousness of the states towards the Sustainable Development Goals for preserving the environment for future generations. The wars bring calamity and discord, it troubles the minds as to who will bear the brunt of this Ecocide. “Ecocide” means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.
The main objective of the UNO was to save the world with the fear of future world wars and to establish peace, prosperity, solidarity and development in the world. The top most international organisation has completely failed a number of times in the past like the crises between North and South Korea, Indo-China war, Indo-Pakistan war, Cambodia genocide, Rwanda civil war, Gulf war or Sudan massacre. This time again UN seems to be helpless in supporting Ukraine. The whole world gets terrifies by the mere idea of the Third world war and biological warfare, the states make efforts for peace through its own political and diplomatic means. In the clash of the superpowers for their own interests, the smaller countries suffer the most. The environment becomes the silent victim of the human warfare and the international environmental law is addressed as ‘Hypocrisy’.
In the above situation the world community requires an overhauling in the Legal framework of the International Environmental Law. A longer-term solution would be to reform the ICC’s statute to explicitly include environmental crimes, which is the goal of the Stop Ecocide campaign. ICC should be strengthened by linking environmental destruction to attacks against civilian property (a war crime) or a widespread and systematic attack on a civilian population (a crime against humanity.
Action could also be taken domestically, by strengthening the Domestic laws of the states. Strict liability should be imposed on the invader states for damaging the environment and the ecosystem. An international environment monitoring agency should be made to check and monitor the harm caused by human conflict between states.
No war on the earth can go on endlessly, nor has it been the era of those wars that one side would give up in front of the other. Therefore, after being shattered by war, both the sides will have to take the recourse of the bilateral talks in order to come to a resolution and save the environment for future.
[1] Heinrich Boll: 1947 bis 1951 (KOln: Friedrich Middelhauve Verlag, 1964), p. 371. All subsequent parenthetical references are to this collection of Boll's early works.
[2] Machlis G.E. and Hanson T. 2008. Warfare ecology. BioScience, 58: 729–736.
[3] Principle 25, REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992)
[4] Erika Weinthal and Jeannie Sowers, authors of “Health and Environmental Tolls of Protracted Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa “Current History (2021) 120 (830): 339–345.
[5] A/RES/37/7. World Charter for Nature http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r007.htm
[6] 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future
[7] https://www.un.org/disarmament/biological-weapons/ 3rd May 2022
[8] "Convention on the prohibition of military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques" retrived on 3rd May 2022
[9] Principle 24, REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992)
[10] https://science.thewire.in/environment/environmental-consequences-war/ 2nd May 2022
[11] https://www.lenntech.com/environmental-effects-war.htm#ixzz7SouaeSeh 2nd May 2022
[12] DeWeerdt, Sarah (January 2008). "War and the Environment". World Wide Watch. 21 (1).
[13] King, Jessie (8 July 2006). "Vietnamese wildlife still paying a high price for chemical warfare". The Independent. Retrieved 2nd May 2022.
[14] Lawrence, Michael (2015). "The effects of modern war and military activities on biodiversity and the environment". Environmental Reviews. 23 (4): 443–460. doi:10.1139/er-2015-0039. hdl:1807/69913
[16] DeWeerdt, Sarah (January 2008). "War and the Environment". World Wide Watch. 21 (1)
[17] Ibid
[18] Ibid
[19] J. Crawford and J. Watkins, “International Responsibility”, in: J. Tasioulas and S. Besson (eds) The Philosophy of International Law, Oxford University Press (2010) 293; R.W. Grant and R.O. Keohane, “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics”, American Political Science Review 99 (2005), 35
[20] A. Boyle and J. Harrison, Judicial Settlement of International Environmental Disputes: Current Problems, Journal of International Dispute Settlement, Volume 4, Issue 2, (1 July 2013), 245–276.
[21] J. Crawford, “Historical development”, In: State Responsibility: The General Part (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, 2013), pp. 3-44.
[22] J. Crawford, The ILC´s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (CUP, 2002); J. Crawford, A. Pellet, and S. Olleson (eds.) The Law of International Responsibility (OUP, 2010)
[23] Onke Ngcuka, “UN ENVIRONMENT ASSEMBLY 5.2, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sets environmental disaster alarm bells ringing” Feb. 28, 2022, available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-28-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-sets-environmental-disaster-alarm-bells-ringing/ (last visited on Mar.21, 2022).
[24] P. Sand, Compensation for Environmental Damage from the 1991 Gulf War. See also Sands and Peel, 755-760.