Targeting environmental infrastructures, international law, and civilians in the new Middle Eastern wars

Abstract

Research in conflict studies and environmental security has largely focused on the mechanisms through which the environment and natural resources foster conflict or contribute to peacebuilding. An understudied area of research, however, concerns the ways in which warfare has targeted civilian infrastructure with long-term effects on human welfare and ecosystems. This article seeks to fill this gap. We focus on better understanding the conflict destruction of water, sanitation, waste, and energy infrastructures, which we term environmental infrastructures, by drawing on an author-compiled database of the post-2011 wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While research across the social sciences has examined the targeting of civilians and environmental destruction during wars, including the issue of urbicide, we expand the study of targeting environmental infrastructure to (1) examine the role of different types of actors (international vs. subnational), (2) document the type of infrastructure targeted, form of attack, and impacts, and (3) situate increased targeting of environmental infrastructure in the changing context of war-making in the MENA. Comparatively analyzing the conflict zones of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, we show that targeting environmental infrastructure is an increasingly prevalent form of war-making in the MENA, with long-term implications for rebuilding states, sustaining livelihoods, and resolving conflicts.

Conflict ecologies: Connecting political ecology and peace and conflict studies

“…Homer-Dixon stops short of claiming a direct causal link between environmental degradation, scarcity and conflict, but instead suggests that environmental scarcity intersects with other conflict-producing dynamics. It is important to note that environmental security encompasses a much wider range of arguments than those posed by Homer-Dixon (Floyd and Matthew 2013), including notions of the conflict trap (Bannon and Collier 2003), resilience (Schilling et al 2017), and impacts relating to the built-environment (Sowers et al 2017).…”

Military Use Of Environmental Degradation by Islamic State, Northern Iraq

“…84 King (2017) notes that the best possible international diplomatic response to the growing capacity of hostile non-state actors to use water as a weapon, is to legitimise state power. 85 This can be extended to using environmental degradation as a weapon 86 and can be achieved by nations supporting international agreements and facilitating co-operation among the governments of Turkey, Iraq and possibly Syria as well as the Kurdistan Region. 87 Nations could use diplomatic leverage in the United Nations and other bodies to support the application and enforcement of an existing body of international law that prohibits using environmental destruction and degradation as a weapon.…”

Tackling the Trickle: Ensuring Sustainable Water Management in the Arab Region

“…Besides the indirect impact from armed conflict, the direct impact that results in the destruction and damage of water and wastewater infrastructure is also another way in which conflicts compound existing water challenges (Gleick, 2019). Evidence from recent conflicts (Gaza, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen) shows that extensive destruction of infrastructure (including water, wastewater, and energy infrastructure) is an increasingly prevalent result of warfare being waged in urban areas in the region (ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), 2015a; Sowers et al, 2017). Given the interrelated nature of public services and infrastructure, attacks on power plants also have significant impacts on water supplies as they force the shutdown of pumping stations and treatment plants.…”