The relationship between armed conflict, the environment and climate change is intricate and challenging to define. While international humanitarian law (IHL) includes some environmental protections, it did not anticipate the connection to climate change. Climate change can act as a risk multiplier, intensifying negative socio-economic impacts, and conflict-related environmental damage may contribute to climate change. Bridging these fields is crucial, and to this end, this article seeks to interpret IHL considering evolving understandings of armed conflict effects and progress under international environmental law (IEL). The article illustrates how existing norms can address climate change impacts in warfare, and explores how relevant IEL provisions, such as the Paris Agreement and the harm prevention principle, could be applied during armed conflicts to achieve similar goals.

In 2020, the International Committee of the Red Cross's work on the protection of the natural environment under international humanitarian law (IHL) produced the Committee's Guidelines on the Protection of the Natural Environment in Armed Conflict (ICRC Guidelines), an update of their 1994 predecessor. The ICRC Guidelines consist of thirty-two rules and recommendations under IHL, each accompanied by a commentary explaining their legal basis and providing guidance for interpretation. This article presents an overview of the context surrounding the Guidelines, certain key legal content, and practical implications for the conduct of parties to armed conflict as they fight.

Around 50 million people across the world are affected by urban warfare. When conflict occurs in cities, the natural environment has historically been relegated to an afterthought, but both the immediate and long-term environmental consequences of urban warfare are serious. This article looks at actions that can be taken to protect the natural environment – and through this, the population – against the effects of urban warfare when fighting in urban areas. It is intended to be a part of the conversation about what parties to armed conflict can and should do to give effect to their legal obligations under international humanitarian law and international law more broadly, with a specific focus on the natural environment when fighting in urban areas.

Throughout history, armed conflicts have frequently seen serious harm committed against the natural environment. From the early 1960s to 1971, the United States used Agent Orange to defoliate large tracts of Vietnamese forests. In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein vengefully ordered the burning of Kuwaiti oil wells, resulting in massive pollution to the air, land and surrounding seas. More recently, ecocentric harm has been documented in the Colombian civil war, by the so-called Islamic State group, and in the Ukraine conflict, among others. Whilst international humanitarian law (IHL) contains several prohibitions against environmental harm, the most striking is Article 55(2) of Additional Protocol I, whereby “[a]ttacks against the natural environment by way of reprisals are prohibited”. Although this provision appears absolute and unconditional, critical questions persist regarding its status under customary international law and its applicability in non-international armed conflicts. Moreover, its criminalization has not been explored in the jurisprudence of international courts or in the relevant scholarly literature, despite the fact that penal sanctions against individuals are an important factor for enforcement of environmental protections.

To fill the lacuna, the following analysis examines the prohibition and criminalization of reprisals against the natural environment. It reviews conventional and customary international law to determine the current status of a putative criminal prohibition and its potential as lex ferenda. Importantly, it also assesses the relevance of reprisals against the natural environment for prosecutions under existing war crimes, such as attacks on civilian objects and destruction of enemy property. It generates novel insights for the application of international law to ecocentric harm, including that (1) reprisals against the natural environment are not criminal per se, but (2) conceptualizing the environment as a civilian object opens up clear paths for prosecuting attacks, including reprisals, against it; (3) the inherently intentional nature of reprisals has far-reaching implications for their prosecution; (4) reprisals can significantly impact the pivotal test of military necessity which arises in criminal prohibitions such as that found in Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute; and (5) situations of reprisals could impact the application of the proposed definition of ecocide.

Traversing IHL and international criminal law (ICL), the article identifies ways in which these traditionally anthropocentric bodies of law can be reoriented to accommodate ecocentric values. This reconceptualization is significant, as the prospect of criminal sanctions is critical for deterring potential perpetrators and potentially adds a basis for reparations designed to remediate damage to the environment. The assessment redresses the fact that the natural environment has been seen as a peripheral matter under both IHL and ICL and has remained under-explored despite the ongoing destruction wrought on nature including during armed conflict. It seeks to elevate the environment to a core protected value under these legal regimes, as a reflection of our increasing awareness that the natural environment is critical for the well-being of current and future generations and our growing appreciation of the intrinsic importance of protecting nature.

This article reports an interview with Professors Tim Flannery and Dexter Dunphy conducted during the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM) Conference in December 2009. Flannery and Dunphy share their thoughts about the meaning of sustainability and what is required of business, government and individuals in responding to global environmental problems. Both professors express their passion for sustainability and clearly articulate the vital role that business and management play in achieving a sustainable future. The interview is followed by a discussion of the major themes and implications for management educators, researchers and practitioners.

While vacation colonies, camps for children and young people, well-equipped beaches and playgrounds, and the first national parks were conceived in Italy during the Liberal period, it was not until the late 1920s/1930s that they were created and transformed by the Fascist regime. This article will analyse the purposes of the use of the environment and protected areas by Fascist organisations during the Fascist regime by different social groups and classes. It will try to answer several questions: how did Fascist mass organisations (youth organisations such as the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) and Gioventò Italiana del Littorio (GIL), leisure organisations like the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND), sports associations) relate to environmental space? Which popular activities were conceived for open-air, urban and national parks? How did the relationship between outdoor leisure and the environment develop in the ‘new’ middle class in the 1930s? How did Fascism conceive of the relationship between human beings and nature? The Nazi regime and the US New Deal were the strongest models at that time in terms of the politics of land conservation and leisure time. Did Fascism look to those experiments; did Fascism find its own modern ‘conservative’ relationship with the environment? This article will try to answer some of these questions, mindful of the lack of studies on Italy in comparison with the expanding historiography on the German and American cases.

Article 8(2)(b)(iv), second alternative, of the Statute of the International Criminal Court lists as a war crime the launching of an attack that may cause excessive damage to the natural environment. The incorporation of this offence into the ICC Statute appears to be a great achievement, as it is the first time that such conduct has expressly been declared to entail individual criminal responsibility under an international treaty. It is, however, submitted that Article 8(2)(b)(iv), second alternative, of the ICC Statute, suffers from a serious lack of definition. In addition, the provision depends on an extremely high damage threshold which further complicates its application in practice.

The present study illustrates the use of brief functional analysis probe conditions to verify the results of a descriptive assessment. An initial descriptive assessment of the disruptive behaviour of an 8-year-old student with severe developmental disabilities showed that levels of disruptive behaviour (screaming and throwing equipment) were higher in some lessons than others and suggested that the behaviour might be maintained by escape from task demands. An intervention in which work demands were alternated with 5-minute periods of free activity reduced levels of screaming to under 50%, and of throwing to under 25%, of baseline levels. Brief experimental variations of demand level in some lessons confirmed that levels of disruption were generally higher under high demand conditions. We conclude that brief probes provide a method by which experimental analyses can be conducted in the client's natural environment, reducing the problem of non-occurrence of the target behaviour that can pose problems for analogue assessments and facilitating ongoing assessment during initial intervention. We note also, however, that the consequent reduction in control over establishing operations may reduce the precision of the analysis and that ethical considerations limit the range of behaviours for which the method is appropriate.