ENMOD convention

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The ENMOD convention , English Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of En vironmental Mod ification Techniques (Eng .: Environmental War Convention ), is one of the Disarmament Commission of the United Nations elaborate an international treaty on the prohibition of military or any other hostile Use of environmentally changing techniques. The convention prohibits the contracting parties from targeted military interventions in natural processes of the environment, but also the use of influences of the natural environment as a weapon in war or armed conflict . The convention linked international environmental law and humanitarian law .

Historical information

Shortly after the end of the Vietnam War and its environmental consequences, the issue of environmental war was placed on the agenda of the United Nations by the then Soviet Union in 1974 . This led to the drafting of the Convention, which was passed by the General Assembly of the UN as Resolution 31/72 on December 10, 1976. From May 18, 1977 to October 5, 1978, 47 states signed the convention, which came into force on October 5, 1978 for the signatory states.

The protection of the natural environment from the effects of armed conflict was affirmed in 1977 by the first additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions . This agreement also expanded the concept of the environment to include the social and man-made environment. According to this, human infrastructures, cultural landscapes and human living space are also considered to be environments worthy of protection. Furthermore, the additional protocol prohibits attacks against the natural environment as reprisals.

Possible violations and controversies

Possible violations of the convention include, for example, the targeted setting on fire of around 550 Kuwaiti oil fields by the Iraqi armed forces in the 1991 Gulf War and the discharge of around 1.7 million tons of crude oil into the sea to prevent Allied troops from landing. In both cases there was massive damage to nature. In the same war, Turkey dammed the Tigris River , resulting in a water shortage in Iraq. The use of projectiles made from depleted uranium in both the Kosovo war and the Gulf war is also seen by some observers as a possible violation.

The use of atomic bombs was at times under discussion as an environmental bomb to be banned . The environmental damage, a common side effect of modern wars, is not part of the Convention.

acceptance

As of November 2015, 77 states have been party to the ENMOD Convention, including Great Britain and Russia since 1978, the United States since 1980 and China since 2005, but not Israel . Of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council , only France has not yet acceded to the agreement. Germany became a contracting party on May 24, 1983, Switzerland on August 5, 1988 and Austria on January 17, 1990. The United Nations are the depositaries of the ENMOD Convention.

literature

  • Ingo v. Münch, Martin Klingst: Disarmament - Retrofitting - Securing Peace: NATO Double Resolution, NATO Treaty, Stationing Treaty, Environmental War Convention , SALT 1, SALT 2, CSCE Final Act, CSCE Follow- Up Conference. German Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-423-05536-7

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