Protection of environment in armed conflicts: From progress to regress

Abstract

The paper deals with the issue of environmental protection in armed conflicts. The article starts from the solutions contained in the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD Convention) and the Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which, for the first time, explicitly contained provisions on the protection of environment in armed conflicts. Then the author focuses on the content of Article 8 of the Rome Statute and gives a brief overview of theoretical statements of prominent authors. Comparing the solutions of Protocol I and Rome Statute, the author starts from the hypothesis that the solution of the Rome Statute represent a step backwards in the protection of the environment in armed conflicts in relation to the solutions of Protocol I. In addition to critical consideration of the aforementioned provisions of the Rome Statute, the author points out the differences in the standardization of ecological war crimes in the Rome Statute and the Serbian Criminal Code. After reviewing the normative solutions, the author presents the selected examples of environmental protection in armed conflicts in practice. The results of the research, by application of the legal dogmatic method, shows that there are many problems that hinder the implementation of relevant provisions of the instruments of environmental protection in armed conflicts in practice. Therefore, the aim of the author is, starting from the problems in this area, to offer de lege ferenda proposals for the amendment of existing solutions.