Crime of ecocide in Ukraine – environmental consequences of Russian military aggression
Ihor Kozak
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0960-4797
Abstract
Even though the definition of the crime of ecocide was proposed by the Independent Expert Panel in 2021 it has not been incorporated into any international agreement yet. The Russian military aggression in Ukraine has demonstrated that the concept of ecocide is still relevant. The aim of the article is to analyse the concept of ecocide and to show that certain actions of the Russian army directed against the natural environment in Ukraine meet the criteria of the crime of ecocide, and therefore that these actions were unlawful, intentional, and committed with the awareness that they may result in serious and long-term or widespread damage to the environment.
Keywords:
crime of ecocide, Russian military aggression, Ukraine, environmental damageReferences
Bazhenova H., The War in Ukraine: Crimes against the Environment (part 1), Instytut Europy Środkowej – IEŚ Commentaries 2022, no. 605 (117).
Bustami А., Hecken M.-Ch., Perspectives for a New International Crime against the Environment: International Criminal Responsibility for Environmental Degradation under the Rome Statute, Goettingen Journal of International Law 2021, vol. 11, no. 1.
Cak T., Bìl’o I., Tkačuk Û., Ekologo-ekonomìčnì naslìdkirosìjs’ko-ukraïns’koï vìjni, Ekonomìka ta suspìl’stvo 2022, vol. 38.
Chowdhury P.R., Medhi H., Bhattacharyya K.G., Hussain Ch.M., Severe Deterioration in Food-Energy-Ecosystem nexus Due to Ongoing Russia-Ukraine War: A Critical Review, Science of the Total Environment 2023, vol. 902.
Gardashuk T., Is Russian Aggression in Ukraine Ecocide?, Envigogika 2022, vol. 17, no. 1.
Gnedìna K., Nagornij P., Zagrozi ekologìčnìj bezpecì: realìï voênnogo času ta ekonomìčne stimulûvannâ povoênnogo ekologìčnogo vìdnovlennâ Ukraïni, Problemiì perspektivi ekonomìki ta upravlìnnâ, teoretičnì problemi rozvitkunacìonal’noï ekonomìki 2022, no. 4 (32).
Greene A., The Campaign to Make Ecocide an International Crime: Quixotic Quest or Moral Imperative?, Fordham Environmental Law Review 2019, vol. 30, no. 3.
Leclerc G., Russia’s War on Ukraine: High Environmental Toll, European Parliamentary Research Service, PE 751.427 – July 2023.
Minkova L., The Fifth International Crime: Reflections on the Definition of Ecocide, Journal of Genocide Research 2023, vol. 25, no. 1.
Pereira P., Bašić F., Bogunovic I., Barcelo D., Russian-Ukrainian War Impacts the Total Environment, Science of the Total Environment 2022, vol. 837.
Rawtani D., Gupta G., Khatri N., Rao P.K., Hussain Ch.M., Environmental Damages Due to War in Ukraine: A Perspective, Science of the Total Environment 2022, vol. 850.
Report of the ILC on the work of its 47th session, UN Doc. A/50/10, 21 July 1995.
Solokha M., Pereira P., Symochko L., Vynokurova N., Demyanyuk O., Sementsova K., Inacio M., Barcelo D., Russian-Ukrainian War Impacts on the Environment. Evidence from the Field on Soil Properties and Remote Sensing, Science of the Total Environment 2023, vol. 902.
Stop Ecocide Foundation, Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide. Commentary and Core Text, Amsterdam 2021.
Taraŝuk C.B., Kolomiêc’ G.V., Derkač O.M., Movčai Â.I., Mojsiênko I.I., Parafilo M.M., Abduloyêva O.C., Kìnburn: Perspektivi zbalansovanogo rozvitku, Kiïv 2008.
Ukolova V., Ukolova Ê., Problema ekocidu âk ekologìčnogo zločinu: ukraïns’kij ta mìžnarodnij dosvìd, Ûridičnij naukovije elektronnij žurnal 2021, no. 10.
Vyshnevsky V., Shevchuk S., Komorin V., Oleynik Y., Gleick P., The Destruction of the Kakhovka dam and Its Consequences, Water International 2023, vol. 48, no. 5.
Westing A.H., Arms Control and the Environment: Proscription of Ecocide, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1974, vol. 30, no. 1.
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0960-4797
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Author declares that the Work is original and does not infringe any personal or proprietary rights of third parties, and that She/He has unlimited rights to the Work which are the subject of the Agreement signed with the Publisher.
Author of the publication transfers to the Publisher the economic copyrights to the Work (article) submitted for publication, free of charge, without time and territorial restrictions in the following fields of use:
a) production, recording and reproduction of the copies of the Work by a specific technique, including printing, magnetic recording and digital technology;
b) marketing, lending or rental of the original or copies of the Work, and distribution in the form of open access, in accordance with the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (also known as CC BY), available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.pl;
c) inclusing the Work in the composition of the collective work;
d) publishing on the website of the journal, public performance, exhibition, display, reproduction, broadcasting and rebroadcasting, and making the Work available to the public in such a way that everyone can have access to them in a place and at a time chosen by them;
e) uploading the Work in an electronic form to electronic platforms or other uploading of the Work in an electronic form to the Internet or other network.
The proprietary copyright to the Work is transferred to the Publisher free of charge upon signing the contract wit the Publisher.
