State Accountability for Environmental Damage in International Armed Conflict

The book comprehensively analyses whether a State may be held responsible for environmental damage resulting from its wrongful conduct in international armed conflict.

Focusing on elements of State responsibility’s main elements, obligations, damage and standard of conduct, under the law of armed conflict and international environmental law, the book covers war and occupation and other relevant applicable laws. This extends to international water and human rights law. It presents techniques to resolve conflicts of norms from different law branches, when simultaneously applied, and incorporates latest legal developments and potential impact on the subject. Engaging with detailed analysis of legal rules, the book highlights weaknesses within the law alongside proposing new interpretations of outdated notions. Practical application of the rules is illustrated by two cases of damage to land, Mediterranean Sea and air pollution in the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon (2006) and to the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s natural resources, mainly land, water and quarries. It concludes by examining mechanisms to enforce State responsibility.

The book will be of interest to graduate law students, researchers and practitioners in the field of international law, the law of armed conflict international environmental and water law and human rights law.

Aїda Tamer Chammas is an independent international law researcher. After graduating from University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas and further studies at the Fletcher School, Boston, she practiced as a finance lawyer in Paris, before moving to London in 1996. Her current research interests, developed during an LLM and PhD at the University of London, SOAS Law School, cover mainly international environmental law, law of armed conflict including war and occupation and public international law issues. She was an alternate member of the International Law Association Committee on Participation in Global Cultural Heritage Governance between 2018 and 2022.