Environmental Law of Armed Conflict
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Pace University DigitalCommons@Pace Dissertations & Theses School of Law 1-1-2002 Environmental Law of Armed Conflict Nada Al-Duaij Pace University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawdissertations Part of the Environmental Law Commons, and the Human Rights Law Commons Recommended Citation Nada Al-Duaij, Environmental Law of Armed Conflict (2002) (S.J.D. dissertation, Pace University School of Law), available at http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawdissertations/1/. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations & Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Nada Al-Duaij Environmental Law Of Armed Conflict Introduction “Modern armaments can dissipate their destructive energy or introduce their destructive agents on the land or in the sea, in the air or in the space above it. The ecosystems at risk may be either terrestrial or oceanic and either arctic, temperate or tropical. The terrestrial ones may be continental or insular, either forest, grassland or desert, the oceanic ones may be estuarine, littoral (near shore), over the continental shelves or within ocean basins. Damage may be inflicted either directly or indirectly and range from subtle to dramatic.”1 There is renewed evidence that warfare involves conflicts not only between the combatants, but also between man and nature. The ability of modern warfare to devastate the natural environment has become ever more obvious: animal species become extinct, forests become deserts, fertile farmland becomes a minefield, water becomes contaminated and native vegetation disappears. Attacks on the environment become more savage as technology develops. Environmental destruction has become an inevitable result of modern warfare and military tactics. The nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that emerged during the late twentieth century present threats to life itself; but short of that apocalypse, modern weapons can cause or hasten a host of environmental disasters, such as deforestation and erosion, global warming, desertification, or holes in the ozone layer. The devastating effects of military weapons on the environment is reflected throughout the history of the 1 Westing and Lumsden (1979:8), quoted in Cassady B. Craft & Suzette R. Grillot, Conventional Arms Control and the Environment: Mitigating the Effects of War, paper prepared for the Symposium: Arms and the Environment: Preventing the Perils of Disarmament 4 (Dec. 9-10, 1999) Tulsa, Oklahoma [hereinafter Craft & Grillot]. 1 twentieth century, in World War I, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Cambodian civil war, Gulf wars I and II, the Afghan civil war, and the Kosovo conflict. The Science for Peace Institute at the University of Toronto estimates that 10 to 30 percent of all environmental degradation in the world is a direct result of the various militaries.2 Military operations can affect land, air, wildlife, and water resources. A German report concluded that six to ten percent of the world’s air pollution is a result of military activity, and that the world’s military is also responsible for the emission of approximately two-thirds of all chlorofluorocarbon-113 released into the atmosphere.3 In modern warfare, environmental destruction can be a primary means of threatening or defeating one’s enemies. War itself can, and often does, mean war against the natural environment. During Gulf War II, which was the most toxic war in history, Saddam Hussein threatened to pollute the Gulf with oil, and burn oil wells if other nations attempted to liberate Kuwait.4 He carried out his threats after the beginning of the United Nations coalition5 air raids. Iraq pumped crude oil into the Gulf, and set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields. Iraqi troops destroyed eighty to eighty five percent of Kuwait’s 950 oil wells.6 The daily release of heat from these wells was estimated to be about eighty six billion watts, equivalent to that of a five hundred-acre forest fire.7 The fires burned about 4,600,000 barrels of oil daily. Smoke spread as far as 800 miles south of Kuwait.8 The Iraqi military 2 Suzan D. Lanier-Graham, The Ecology of War: Environmental Impacts of Weaponry and Warfare xxix (Walker & Company, 1993) [hereinafter Lanier-Graham]. 3 Id., at xxx. 4 Stephen Dycus, National Defense and the Environment 138 (University Press of New England, 1996) [hereinafter Dycus]. 5 The International Coalition Member States in the United Nations Authorized Action Against Iraq in the Gulf War II are: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States. In addition, Japan participated by sending medical assistance to Saudi Arabia. And Turkey allowed coalition air forces to take off from air bases on its land. See John North Moore, Crisis in the Gulf: Enforcing the Rules of Law 399 (Oceana Publication, Inc., 1992). 6 Donatella Lorch, Burning Wells Turns Kuwait into Land of Oily Blackness, N.Y. Times, Mar. 6, 1991, at A1, A15. 7 Mark J.T. Caggiano, Comment, The Legitimacy of Environmental Destruction in Modern Warfare: Customary Substance Over Conventional Form, 20 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 479, 480-481 (1993) [hereinafter Caggiano]. 8 Bob Davis, U.S. Scientists Play Down Effect of Fires in Kuwait, Angering Environmentalists, Wall St. J., June 25, 1991, at A3. 2 created what has been called “the worst man-made environmental disaster in history.”9 The Kuwaiti government estimated the value of the lost oil at $12 billion.10 Some reports stated that at least 30,000 marine birds perished as a result of exposure to oil, and about 50% of the coral reefs on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia was damaged or destroyed. Some of the annual flora in the region failed to set seeds because of the exposure to soot and oil mist.11 Moreover, massive environmental destruction was caused not only by deliberate military tactics, but by other activities related to war efforts. The United States military produced approximately 6 million used plastic bags weekly, from their “Meals Ready to Eat.” Soft drink cans and junk food cardboards were also disposed of in the desert.12 About 40,000 km² areas of Kuwait, northeastern Saudi Arabia, and Southern Iraq were littered with solid waste from Gulf War II.13 Solid wastes were generated mainly from destroyed military hardware (over 5000 Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles, over one million mines in Kuwait), residue of explosives and ammunitions (over 80,000 tons of bombs were dropped and about 120,000 tons of ammunition used), and sanitary residues (over 4 million tons of wastes from humans).14 Solid wastes generated during Gulf War II still pose a serious threat to land resources in the war zone. Depleted Uranium (DU) was used in weapon ammunition for the first time by the coalition during Gulf War II in 1991. It is estimated that the United States Army fired about 14,000 high-caliber shells containing DU during the war.15 According to the British Atomic Energy Authority, about “forty tons of this type of projectile are scattered near the Iraqi-Kuwaiti borders, and no more than ten percent of these ammunitions have 9 Michael Ross, Experts Blame Saudis, Kuwaitis as Spell, Oil Fires Go Unchecked, L.A. Times, Apr. 12, 1991, at A10 [hereinafter Ross, Experts Blame]. 10 Caggiano, supra note (7) at 480-481. 11 Makram A. Gerges, On the Impacts of the 1991 Gulf War on the Environment of the Region: General Observations, 27 Marine Pollution Bull. 305, 306 (1993). 12 Lanier-Graham, supra note (2) at 66. 13 Mohammad Sadiq, John C. Mc Cain Eds., The Gulf War Aftermath: An Environmental Tragedy 183 (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993) [hereinafter Sadiq & McCain]. 14 Id., at 183. 15 Dr. Siegwart-Horst Guenther, How D.U. Shell Residues Poison Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, in Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with depleted uranium Weapons 168 (Rosalie Bertell et al. eds., 1997) [hereinafter Guenther]. 3 yet been detected.”16 An American lieutenant colonel was quoted in an official report as saying: “[t]he explosions spread DU penetrators […] throughout the north compound. The fires produced billowing black and white clouds of smoke that … drifted … towards Kuwait City … I personally handled over two dozen rods or pieces of rods [of DU]. Most of them had a black sooty or powdery coating over them…there would be as many as 50 soldiers ‘on line’ sweeping down a cleared area of very small debris, sand and dust […]”17 DU is used to strengthen weapons because it is sixty five percent denser than lead.18 It is flammable and can penetrate even “steel-armored tanks.”19 However, DU is a real threat to human health and the environment. For example, since uranium is a heavy metal it can be toxic if it enters the body and lodges in the kidney.20 Studies have shown that contact with DU projectiles leads to leukemia, anemia, birth defects, and other serious maladies.21 One British company refused a contractual project to remove poisonous uranium from the Kuwaiti region because of the fear that its staff would be exposed to great risk.22 Land resources of the war region were adversely affected. However, because Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq lack the technology and expertise to fully determine the environmental impact of the war, and because it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately assess the harm to the natural environment, damage to the land resources may not be repaired for several decades, if indeed at all.