The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have brought the ecological dimensions of military conflict back to the fore. Yet, the ‘environment’ is more than a ‘silent victim’ of modern warfare, something to be protected and cherished. To better grasp the relationship between international law, nature, and violence I suggest turning to the work of political scientists, ecologists, and economists. Since at least the 1980s, research in peace and conflict studies has sought to explain how different environmental issues may contribute to the outbreak, prolongation, and resolution of violent conflict. While this literature is not monolithic, some theories have fed into international law influencing discourses and practices. In this talk, I will offer an overview of my engagement with the ‘ecology of war and peace’ by focusing on two ‘issues’ that have preoccupied international lawyers and institutions: natural resource ‘wealth’ as paving the way to civil wars and atrocities; and resource ‘scarcity’ as threatening global peace and security. Drawing upon different intellectual traditions, I will unpack the changing ideas of nature in rules governing war and the transition to peace and argue that international law ends up normalizing (and even reproducing) forms of slow and structural ecological violence. Lastly, I will consider how foregrounding the political ecology of international law may open new lines of inquiry and help rethink dominant approaches within our field.
Eliana Cusato is an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam Law School (UvA). She is the author of The Ecology of War and Peace: Marginalising Slow and Structural Violence in International Law (Cambridge University Press in 2021). She is a member of the editorial board of the Leiden Journal of International Law. In 2021 she was awarded the young scholar prize of the European Society of International Law.
Date: 9 January 2025
Time: 6.00-7.00 pm CET
The presentation will take place online via Zoom. Please register below. The Zoom link and login data will be sent to those registered ahead of the event.
Registration:
Please mail jessica.oheim@student.uni-tuebingen.de to register or if you have any questions.
About the Lecture Series
TwoLaW is an online lecture series on the theory, history, policy and practice of the laws of war. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East, rarely in recent memory have both the ius contra bellum and the ius in bello faced so many daunting challenges: use of force by and self-defence against non-state actors; the participation of private military companies in hostilities; the digitization of warfare; the protection of civilians and the environment in international, non-international and hybrid armed conflicts; peace agreements and post-conflict claims; international criminal responsibility before and beyond the ICC – to name but a few of them. TwoLaW invites engaging discussions on these matters, seeking to bring into dialogue the law on the prohibition of the use of force and international humanitarian law despite their necessary doctrinal separation.
TwoLaW provides a critical perspective on pertinent challenges of the laws of war, broadly understood, in light of their theoretical, doctrinal, historical and political implications. Each one-hour event features a thought-provoking presentation by a leading scholar in the first half hour followed by a discussion in the second half hour. All events are held exclusively online from 6-7 pm CET.