Chapter 2 maps out major theories in peace and conflict studies dealing with the interaction between nature, war, and peace. While acknowledging that the field is characterised by a broad diversity of research traditions and methodological approaches, the aim of the chapter is to offer a review of the research that has had most influence on international policies and legal development. Although legal scholars often think of this literature as monolithic, what will emerge from this chapter is that there is a vivid debate on the linkages between environment and conflict, which is explained by the different underlying paradigms and concepts. It is important to pay attention to the contested nature of these analytical frameworks to better understand (and challenge) the approaches that emerged at the international level. The second part of the chapter introduces environmental justice as an alternative framework to move beyond certain problematic assumptions about environmental scarcity/abundance that have fed into international law. Environmental justice perspectives will be used in subsequent chapters to think about justice accordingly and beyond international law.

Chapter 5 embarks upon an analysis of the UNSC’s approach to ‘conflict resources’ by considering its use of sanctions, panels/groups of experts, and peacekeeping missions. It will show that UNSC commodity-focused interventions have sought to address the economic motivations for starting and prolonging armed conflict, while failing to bring about the systemic changes necessary to achieve ‘positive peace’. By securitising resource extraction in conflict zones and supporting ‘good governance’ reforms in post-conflict countries, questions of sustainability and more equitable access/distribution of natural resources have been sidelined. Thereafter, through engaging with ongoing debates on the peace and security implications of climate change, the chapter illuminates the limits of existing conceptual/legal frameworks underpinning the practice of the UNSC and the need to rethink what peace and security mean in times of ecological disruption.

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the book. It sets the scene by providing fundamental background information on the issues explored in the book. It then situates the present study within the existing literature. In so doing, it identifies the novel research questions, methodology, and contribution to debates in international law and beyond. It introduces key concepts that will be further discussed in the book, notably the idea of ‘new wars’ and its relationship to the environment. Further, it outlines two theories that provide the foundations and inform the critique developed in the book. The first is Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence and the second is the notion of structural violence, taken from Johan Galtung and adapted to the present issues. Lastly, it offers an overview of arguments made in subsequent chapters.

Chapter 3 traces the historical origins and evolution of legal debates on the ‘protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict’. It examines legal developments and interpretive efforts of scholars to expand the reach of the traditional jus in bello to account for conflict-related environmental degradation and ‘illegal’ resource exploitation, until the more recent attempts to look beyond the laws of armed conflict and war crimes into IEL and HRL. By charting the different formulations of environmental destruction/exploitation in rules governing war, this chapter sheds light on the changing ideas on the relationship between nature, conflict, and humanity, and the problems/possibilities with ongoing conversations in the field.

Chapter 4 delves into the practice of the international judiciary and, specifically, international war crimes tribunals and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). By analysing the approaches of post–World War II tribunals, the committee established to review the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the Former Yugoslavia, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court, the first part of the chapter reflects on the conceptual, normative, and practical limitations of international criminal law. The second part provides a critical reading of two important ICJ cases, the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion and the Armed Activities case (Congo v. Uganda), dealing respectively with the ecological devastation of nuclear weapons and pillage of natural resources in the Congo. The chapter ultimately contends that international justice, both in its criminal and inter-state dimensions, is concerned about individual/state agency, quantifiable harm, and its proximate causes. Thinking in these narrow terms about the ecological impacts of militarism and resource extraction associated with conflict fails to grasp the structural dimensions of the problem, the plurality of actors involved, and the obligations owed to other human and non-human beings.

Chapter 6 illustrates how ‘truth-seeking’ bodies, the TCs in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Timor-Leste, selected and reconstructed the facts of resource-driven wars, particularly their underlying causes and dynamics, as well as the responsibility for harms caused by extractive activities. The chapter also shows how different legal regimes were mobilised in support of the ‘truth’ produced by the three institutions, by identifying three paradigms of responsibility: the state-centered perspective of the Sierra Leonean TC, with its focus on local mismanagement and the need to reform resource governance; the economic crimes lens of the Liberian TC, which sought to hold business actors/public officials accountable for resource plunder and related atrocities through prosecution and vetting; and the socio-economic rights approach of the Timor-Leste TC, resulting in the recognition of breaches to the collective rights of the Timorese people to self-determination and recommendation of ecological restoration. Each paradigm captures and misses something about these conflicts and is associated with different reactions by relevant stakeholders to the findings/recommendations of the three TCs.

The final chapter brings together the main findings and arguments of the book, identifies its broader implications, and formulates some ideas for future research. Building upon insights from political ecology, it suggests that a useful way forward is through reframing questions away from assuming fatalistic relationships between nature and conflict, and starting to ask questions that illuminate the broader social/political/economic dynamics involved. By considering how different environmental injustices play a role in shaping contemporary conflicts, international law scholarship may also expose and challenge the utilitarian/instrumental view of nature that underpins the field. If environmental ‘scarcity’ and ‘abundance’ are not external factors leading to conflict, but the outcomes of socio-economic processes, often linked to historical grievances and unequal power relations, entirely different notions of justice, peace, and security are needed.