When does a serious environmental problem become a security threat?

Professor Tim Flannery, a leading scientist and public intellectual in Australia wrote a piece in the Guardian newspaper a few days ago reflecting on the links between climate change and the extreme temperatures and bushfires ravaging Australia at present. He notes that “Australians are used to hot summers. We normally love them. But the conditions prevailing now are something new. Temperature records are being broken everywhere.” What is important for thinking about the security consequences of climate change is that towards the end of the article, Flannery reflects:

“Australia’s average temperature has increased by just 0.9 of a degree celsius over the past century. Within the next 90 years we’re on track to warm by at least another three degrees. Having seen what 0.9 of a degree has done to heatwaves and fire extremes, I dread to think about the kind of country my grandchildren will live in. Even our best agricultural land will be under threat if that future is realised. And large parts of the continent will be uninhabitable, not just by humans, but by Australia’s spectacular biodiversity as well.”

Conditions in which large parts of the continent are threatened in such a way would appear to raise some pretty serious questions about Australia’s national security (let alone the human security of those individuals living in areas where agriculture has failed or fires threaten homes and livelihoods). Yet recently a number of commentators have become particularly concerned about the so-called ‘securitisation’ of climate change, largely due to a sense of there being “alarmist views about climate change on conflict risk.” This has led some to argue that rather than helping to raise the profile of the issue in terms of the need for urgent policy change, we in fact now need to “disconnect security and climate change.” According to Professor Betsy Hartmann of Hampshire College, “A fear of imminent doom runs deep in popular culture and, like the grim reaper, stalks the environmental movement.” This, she argues allows “security agencies and analysts” to distract us from feelings of empathy towards those affected by climate change and to instead cause us to fear them and to “turn to the military to protect us.” According to Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia,

“What climate change means to us and means to the world is conditioned by what we do, by the way we govern, by the stories we tell. Presenting climate change as the ultimate security crisis is crudely deterministic, detached from the complexities of our world, and invites new and dangerous forms of military intervention.”

All of this matters as the potential world in which Flannery is imagining that his grandchildren might have to live in is becoming more and more likely the longer multilateral efforts drag on. Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, when asked to look ahead to the big global governance challengers for 2013 recently stated that: “It is becoming increasingly clear that efforts at mitigation are not just falling short but that the gap between what is needed and what is likely to happen is widening.”

The whole notion of the ‘securitisation’ of climate change pre-supposes that we get to choose whether climate change is a security threat or not – it emphasises what political scientists refer to as human agency. Of course we can choose to label something as a threat or not (yes, perhaps it may even not be the end of the world if we use the dreaded T word!). But in the face of increasingly extreme weather and related natural disasters (let alone serious discussions about whether states such as Kiribati can survive within their own national borders), it does seem that we can sensibly talk about the security threats posed by climate change in the decades to come regardless of whether we can specifically link particular instances of conflict and climate change in the past.

The point is that simply because something may pose a security threat does not mean that we have to respond in the traditional way – to throw military force at it. It’s abundantly clear that there is no military solution to climate change and that addressing the problem at source means changing (among other things) the ways we use energy. But that doesn’t mean that our current energy policies are not a fundamental security threat. They are. And why can’t we use better energy policies to ensure our security?

Ben Zala is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester.

Author’s Note: All views in this piece are the author’s own and do not reflect her employer’s views or anyone else’s.

In 1996, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signature. The CTBT is a multilateral treaty that bans all nuclear explosions on Earth. Its predecessor, the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), banned nuclear explosions except for underground testing. Between 1945 and 1996, over 2000 tests were conducted by the five NPT nuclear-weapon states. Since 1996, India, Pakistan and the DPRK have conducted around half a dozen tests. A ban on testing limits further development of nuclear explosive devices. Twenty years since the CTBT opened for signature, the Treaty has not yet entered into force given the pending necessary ratifications by eight Annex 2 states (China, the DPRK, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States).  Annex 2 states are the 44 states that participated in the negotiations of the CTBT and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time.

Marking the 20^th year of the CTBT, I attended the 2016 CTBTO Symposium, including several panel events on the treaty in Vienna, and organized a public panel event at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Last week, I attended a high-level CTBTO public discussion panel featuring the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, among other dignitaries. The following are a few reflections and musings on issues surrounding the CTBT at 20 to stimulate discussion. These include issues and questions which continue to irk me—an analyst—and which remain unanswered.

Trite but true: political will vs policy priorities

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the CTBTO Symposium. Image by the Official CTBTO Photostream via Flickr. 

Twenty years on, the bottom line ultimately remains languishing political will. Let’s be honest—the CTBT is not a priority for most states who have yet to sign or ratify this treaty. If this issue had been a policy priority for states, there would have been positive progress towards ratification by now, despite domestic hurdles. Some Annex 2 states may be increasingly perceived to be holding CTBT entry-into-force hostage to other regional issues and priorities.

Political will is again tested when those few windows of opportunity for exerting political leverage on other states vis-à-vis non-proliferation and disarmament are dismissed for more pressing policy objectives. In bilateral nuclear cooperation deals with India, NPT states who advocate routinely for the entry into force of the CTBT—including the US and Australia—could have used the negotiation of a bilateral commercial cooperation deal to include some requirement for India to progress on its CTBT status. More significantly, if the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has to take a decision in the future on admitting India into the NSG as a participating government, then the pre-condition of adhering to nuclear non-proliferation conditions such as ratifying the CTBT could be pushed. Yet these small windows of opportunity for bilateral or multilateral leverage on non-proliferation priorities are squandered.

In a similar vein, one could wonder whether requiring Iran to ratify the CTBT was sacrificed early on in the negotiation process of the multilateral deal seeking to curtail Iran’s nuclear activities. Of course, more pressing objectives vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program were at stake. The CTBT and missile development issues were expendable.

If CTBT entry-into-force is indeed a priority for states of the international community, as oft heard in high-level declarations of support and urgency for this issue, political will and determination for the CTBT should align with policy priorities. It currently doesn’t and, as evidenced by bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements, securing trade policy objectives seem instead to be prioritized.

With the DPRK’s continued defiance of the nuclear testing moratorium, more than high-level statements of condemnation and expressions of regret need to take place following suspected nuclear tests and missile-related activities. China seems to be finally exerting some pressure on the DPRK in the UNSC and via bilateral channels after all these years of acquiescence. Concerted and united action by the international community and the UN Security Council needs to be taken against the DPRK. Such action should include curtailing bilateral trade relations with the DPRK. Again, this will require policy priorities—trade versus non-proliferation—to be assessed by governments.

CTBT: is it a disarmament, non-proliferation, or an arms control treaty?

Throughout the various sessions of the CTBTO Symposium, there were comments and unanswered questions posed by speakers on their views of how to categorize the CTBT. For example, is it a disarmament, non-proliferation or arms control treaty? Or possibly a hybrid of these? There was no clear consensus of views on this issue which was recurrently woven throughout sessions and presentations. An academic assessment of this issue would be useful and may have implications on practicalities.

During a session on the CTBT and nuclear security, I posed a politically sensitive question which remains unanswered. What are the prospects of the CTBT contributing to issues of the broader nuclear security agenda given the existing apprehension and political sensitivities by IAEA member states to link any aspects of nuclear disarmament in addressing nuclear security issues post the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) process? The “d” word inside certain corridors of the Vienna International Center (VIC) seems to raise apprehension and discontent, with arguments voiced by member states of certain international organizations that nuclear disarmament is not covered by the mandates. Disarmament seems to traditionally not be a Vienna issue, and belongs to the enclave dialogue in the NPT and First Committee bubbles in Geneva and New York. Until, that is, 2017, when the NPT PrepCom is due to roll into town for the kick-off of the 2020 NPT review cycle. How states parties view the CTBT—as a disarmament, non-proliferation or arms control treaty—may have implications for this question on whether the CTBT can contribute towards the broader nuclear security priorities.

Is testing necessary?

During the CTBTO Symposium there was a very interesting panel discussion between scientists elaborating the technical rationale for why states conduct nuclear tests. One passing comment on the Vela Incident—a 1979 event which is believed to be a nuclear test conducted by Israel and South Africa over the ocean between the southern part of Africa and the Antarctic–prompted  me to think the unthinkable quietly to myself. Given the existing moratorium on testing (not including subcritical)—which only the DPRK defies–and based on the technical assessment that testing is not necessary for certain devices, would the potential sharing of nuclear test data amongst allies be a preferable solution to testing?

Although this would strictly not contravene the testing moratorium and the text of the CTBT, assisting proliferation and nuclear weapons advancement to NPT non-nuclear weapon states and non-NPT states would still contravene the NPT and the spirit of the CTBT. Although states could potentially avoid international condemnation by transgressing the established testing moratorium e.g. by relying on allies for the required testing data and expertise in relation to simple devices, this would still be contradictory to the spirit of the established non-proliferation treaties which underpin the broader nuclear non-proliferation regime. Moreover, some Annex 2 states seem to be debating domestically whether computer simulations, subcritical tests and activities not specifically prohibited by the CTBT are sufficient for the maintenance of their safe, secure and reliable nuclear arsenals. A comment by a Chinese Ambassador at this week’s recent CTBTO discussion panel, alludes to this debate as the National People’s Congress deliberate the Treaty.

Definitional issue: does nuclear testing constitute nuclear use?

There is a definitional issue which remains to be addressed adequately: does nuclear testing constitute nuclear use? Individuals affected by nuclear testing definitely consider the testing of nuclear explosives and devices as nuclear use. In his intervention at this week’s CTBTO discussion panel, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon argued that bringing the CTBT into force would honour the victims of nuclear testing. The Secretary-General noted that nuclear testing poisons water, causes cancers and pollutes the environment with radioactive fallout for generations.

Whilst most states, academics and analysts would consider the explosion of nuclear devices at Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two instances of nuclear use, many —including victims of nuclear testing— would argue that nuclear testing actually constitutes nuclear use. This is based on the detrimental effects and impact that nuclear testing has had on individuals, communities and the environment where these tests were conducted. In Australia, “nuclear nomads” from aboriginal communities have been forced to leave their spiritual lands. In the South Pacific, including the Marshall Islands, many communities are still living with the long-term reproductive health implications from the nuclear testing that was conducted on their territory.

During this year, marking the 20^th anniversary of the CTBT, it may therefore be fitting to have an honest conversation about whether the international community ought to start considering and reframing our understanding and discourse of what actually constitutes nuclear use. This wouldn’t be politically popular, given the many states who have conducted nuclear tests. Given the highly contentious discord and fractures in the multilateral nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament fora—the NPT review process,the UNGA First Committee and the Open Ended Working Group taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations (OEWG)—in multilateral discussions of pathways towards nuclear disarmament and the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, discussions of reframing the discourse on nuclear testing as nuclear use may add further contention. It could, however, also serve to discursively elevate the issue of nuclear testing, and strengthen the case for entry-into-force of the CTBT. Additionally, it would raise the political costs of future nuclear tests. It does however remain an issue—along with several others raised in this short piece—which ought to be assessed and adequately discussed, even if only in wonky academic circles.

Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Previously she was a Visiting Scholar at the NATO Defence College (NDC), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland (UQ), Research Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park.

South Sudan, the world’s newest country, currently risks slipping into a violent malaise. The crisis in South Sudan highlights very clearly some of the key problems surrounding the practical implementation of the Responsibility to Protect. 

Five years after seceding from Sudan, South Sudan is about to collapse into its second civil war since 2013. Marauding bands of informally constituted ethnic groups contribute to a climate of vigilantism.  UN diplomats debate the utility of an arms embargo in a state awash in arms.  The threat is meant to leverage Juba’s permission to allow a four thousand peacekeeper regional protection force into the country.  But Juba’s complaint about its exclusion from negotiations, contributes to a climate of distrust about the international community and its intentions. The crisis represents a serious challenge for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and the international community to forestall a humanitarian disaster that is well underway.

The Responsibility to Protect

A 2001 report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty introduced the idea of R2P, creating a new international norm that made the formerly autonomous allowances of absolute sovereignty contingent on each state’s responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.  Its controversial pillar two seized the international community with subject matter jurisdiction to intervene as the residual stop-gap agency to prevent internal abuse when states were incapable or unwilling to do the same.  Two other pillars addressed a responsibility to prevent (addressing root causes of catastrophe) and a responsibility to rebuild (to assist with reconstruction and reconciliation).

The development of the norm has been controversial and it has been reworked, principally along lines of nurturing states to live up to their internal responsibilities and tethering it to actions of the UN Security Council.  But its proactive charge of intervention has also been embraced by scholars and norm entrepreneurs as a progressive development. In its 2007 judgment in the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) supported the duty of states to prevent atrocity beyond their borders if they have the capacity to influence persons likely to commit such acts; the ICJ acknowledged that this obligation extended beyond the competent organs of the UN.  The International Law Commission’s 2001 Draft Articles on State Responsibility provided that states cooperate to end through lawful means serious and systematic breaches of peremptory norms.  R2P’s normative development indicates that the idea of a collective responsibility to protect now informs the legalect of international courts and tribunals, suggesting a growing receptivity to and maturation of the doctrine.

R2P, Africa and South Sudan

Image of peacekeepers in Juba by UN Photo via Flickr.

Africa was the first region where the R2P was meant to be applied.  It grew out of the idea of responsible sovereignty, first articulated by Francis Deng and others in 1996.  Responsible sovereignty suggested benefits to cooperation among states.  These benefits went beyond the avoidance of international conflict or the mere ‘tending to’ of sovereign fences.  Responsible sovereignty suggested sovereignty could imply joint action and joint benefits.  It grew into the idea of R2P.

Nowhere has R2Ps reception been stronger than in Africa, having been well received by the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and a litany of African elites, including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Tanzania’s Salim Ahmed Salim, South Sudan’s Francis Deng, Ghana’s former UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan, and Algeria’s Mohamed Sahnoun.  Cases within the African context indicated its time had come: The UN Security Council validated ECOWAS’ interventions in Liberia (1990/92) and Sierra Leone (1997), offering praise in the face of its own inaction to these humanitarian crises.  R2P received the unanimous support of one hundred and seventy Heads of State in two provisions of the 2005 UN World Summit final document, presaging the incorporation of the doctrine by the African Union in its 2005 Ezulwini Consensus report.

But nowhere has its implementation been more problematic than in the world’s newest country, South Sudan.  Sudan, and now South Sudan, have been beset by internecine violence over the last sixty years.  South Sudan teetered on implosion almost immediately after achieving statehood in July 2011.  South Sudan devolved into civil war in December 2013, when its President Salva Kiir Mayardit accused former Vice President Riek Machar of plotting against the regime.  An improbable rapprochement, fortified by an internationally mediated agreement, was signed in August 2015, resulting in Machar’s much delayed return to the capital, Juba in April 2016, and the formation of a most tenuous unity government, which collapsed in July in a wave of bloodshed and atrocity in Juba.  Kiir has now rejected a US proposal to insert the four thousand peacekeepers, claiming it is an attempt to turn South Sudan into a UN protectorate.

Kiir and Machar’s mutual distrust until the most recent violence in July was outweighed only by a common need for more money to support their factions and a mutual interest in avoiding a personal accounting of atrocities allegedly committed by their respective factions.  Interpreted alternatively as an explanation or a threat to the international community, the two allegedly wrote on the Op Ed page of the New York Times in June 2016 that any disciplinary justice meted out “even under international law” would destabilize unity efforts.  Translation:  If you try to bring us to justice, we will bring back war.  They invoked the name of the international community, calling on it to back their non-punitive plan for a mediated reconciliation.   Four days after publication, the New York Times appended an Editor’s Note to the South Sudan leaders’ world-wide call for reconciliation; Machar had disavowed the Op Ed piece, claiming his views had been fabricated. But not completely.  One month later, he and Kiir brought back bloodshed.

The episode highlights the complexities facing South Sudan.  If the international community is to facilitate a solution to the ongoing crisis, only cosmetically concealed by an unravelling claim of unity, the fundamental normative problem of R2P must be addressed:  where in the international community does R2P reside?

Transmuting the international community’s abstract but coercive cause of action to prevent domestic abuse into something other than high-minded rhetoric requires either a fully functioning UN Security Council or another agency with the legitimacy and authority to pierce sovereignty’s veil.  The UN Charter system created a jus ad bellum regime that placed monopoly power over all uses and threats of force (except in cases of self-defense) in the hands of the Security Council.  But that authority is often addled by inaction due to the veto-wielding interests of the big powers, exposing the fundamental weakness of the UN system and provoking the elusive international legal and political pursuit for a better or supplementary normative solution.

Internationalists have wrestled with the poor choice between supporting the legality of the Charter system, which often stood silent in the face of atrocity, or supporting the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention, which only problematized consideration of hidden agendas pertaining to regime change, remedial secession, and self-determination.  Establishing the international community as the ex ante entity vested with such a remedial power came as something of a surprise, and, after fifteen years of ontological development, remains in dispute.  In theoretical terms, R2P marked a return to and modern expression of Christian Wolff’s eighteenth century Republican idea of the civitas maxima (a ‘grand republic’ of nations), the meta-expression of community virtue that upholds the common good, secures the pluralistic interests of the state, and protects the solidarist interests of humanity by presenting a means to prevent internal atrocity.  But even Wolff, who had no understanding of the modern state system as we know it, thought it could not function without a rector.

Kiir and Machar embrace this much of Wolff’s eighteenth century mindset; they view the international community as a rhetorical trope that lacks a headmaster; they invoke its name to lend a fictive air of moral authority to their pieties on reconciliation, when they do not employ it as blackmail.  Much of the doctrinal disarray surrounding R2P’s non-appearance in South Sudan conforms to an uncertainty about the international community itself:  Is it an unwitting continuation of the mission civilisatrice – the persistently failed and resented attempt to make sub-Saharan Africa more European; does it embrace or dismiss African notions of community, which present a humanistic understanding different than contractarian models of liberal institutionalism (Ubuntu); is it an updated form of colonialism?  Perhaps it is an expression of Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology (1922), allowing its claimants the power to decide on the exceptions to legal rules.  Schmitt was wary of the keepers of humanity’s interests.  Paraphrasing Proudhon, he wrote:  whoever invokes humanity’s name wants to cheat.  Kiir and Machar would doubtless agree.

Equally problematic has been locating the international community’s headmaster amid South Sudan’s turmoil.  Does the international community fundamentally reduce to a sanctions policy orchestrated by the US and its allies?  Should it claim a regional identity in the form of mediations sponsored by the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) or IGAD-Plus (an amalgam of states associated with the African Union Peace and Security Council), or non-African agencies of the EU, the so-called Troika (US, UK, and Norway), or perhaps China?

An Emergent Dark Side

South Sudan’s misery teaches us something about the emergent dark side of R2P.  It reveals a heteronomous will of a fragmented international community, which, in South Sudan’s case finds expression in a variety of cross-cutting alliances.  Tensions exist within IGAD, certainly between Uganda and Sudan and possibly due to reports of Eritrean and Sudanese military support of South Sudanese opposition forces.  These tensions diminish IGAD’s mediation efforts and reputation as an honest broker.  Key sectors of South Sudan’s limited civil society (specifically Church leaders) are overlooked; an array of venues and sponsors compete for influence, contributing to complaints of forum-shopping, which allow Kiir and Machar to play components of the international community against each other.  The center of this unity government in South Sudan has not held; war is around the corner and famine is spreading.

Conclusion

Locating R2P within the international community would be daunting enough were questions of its authorization or operationalization in South Sudan settled matters of fact; but its non-appearance in the continuing misery of the country suggests the doctrine, fifteen years in the making, is neither thickly representative of historical process nor thinly embodied as an aspiration.  R2P, in the context of South Sudan, turns the international community into an ethical referent, a conceptual archetype that satisfies saints and sinners alike.

Christopher Rossi has a Ph.D. in international relations from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and an LL.M in public international law from the University of London.  He lectures on international law and relations at the University of Iowa College of Law.

Tackling South African water insecurity will require addressing the technical deficiencies, governance gaps and social inequality that are currently having a dangerous and environmentally devastating impact. The links between environmental health and socio-political stability are clear in South Africa, where there has been an exponential increase in violent protests over poor or privatized service delivery, social marginalization, and unequal access to water. South Africa must act  to solidify the links between resilient societies and resilient ecosystems.

Rural water pump near Ulundi, South Africa. Source: Trevor Samson / World Bank (via Flickr)

Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unveiled the third and final Working Groupreport from its from its landmark Fifth Assessment. This, together with the Second Working Group Report released on 31 March, 2014, is required reading for those wishing to examine the societal impacts of climate change and the potential pathways for twenty-first century resilience. For the first time, the IPCC included a chapter on human security. This is a significant achievement that should increase understanding of the increased threat and impacts on individual livelihoods that climate change is bringing, particularly in the developing world. It is clear that the connections between environmental security and human security run deep, but it is less clear just how societies can build resilience and whether the political will exists to pursue it.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that these challenges manifest themselves uniquely across the world. Due to factors of geography, history, politics, and social development, each region and country experiences climate change in a distinctive way. For Africa, the picture is predictably bleak. The region as a whole has contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions, faces some of the worst consequences of climate change, and has the weakest capacity to cope with the impacts.

The country of South Africa provides a fascinating example of how difficult building ecological resilience can be. Already the 30^th driest country in the world, it is expected to experience further drying trends, and an increase in extreme weather events, including cycles of extreme drought and sudden excessive rains. In relative terms, the country has in fact been a significant contributor to global climate change due to its energy-intensive economy. As such, the country has a global responsibility to engage fully with the IPCC reports and begin developing robust responses to environmental insecurity. However, doing so presents major challenges for a country that remains a “dual economy” with one of the highest rates of income inequality (and inequality of opportunity) in the world.

This is all the more troubling given the country’s progressive stance on environmental issues. In fact, environmental security has been, and will remain, a vital component of the evolving South African identity following the end of apartheid in 1994. The issue of environmental security in South Africa is one that has for years resonated across diverse sections of the population. There are strong cultures of conservation and environmentalism running throughout the country. However, the “Rainbow Nation” continues to suffer from sustained environmental degradation in ways that alter the natural landscape, destroy necessary biodiversity, and hinder social development.

Promises to Keep: water legislation and service delivery

Take for instance the issue of water security. South Africa has long been seen as a world leader in progressive water policy, particularly given its need to address unequal water policies of the Apartheid era. Its Constitution and its National Water Act explicitly declares the human right to water, guaranteeing a minimum allocation of 6000 litres of free, clean water a month for every South African. Nelson Mandela championed the cause, claiming that access to water is “central in the social, economic and political affairs of the country, [African] continent and the world. It should be a lead sector of cooperation for world development.” The guiding vision for South African water policy is eloquently summed up by the former slogan for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry: “some, for all, forever.” The progressive language of water rights enshrined in the country’s legal frameworks is a point of pride amongst South African citizens, but also a flashpoint around which grievances often converge.

Unused farm stall on the road between Clanwilliam and Citrusdal. Source: John Hogg/World Bank (via Flickr)

However, while the Constitution and the National Water Act overturned the discriminatory water policies of the Apartheid era, they remain vague and non-committal on the delivery of their lofty promises. Given all the competing priorities and demands for investment, the country has neglected to invest the necessary resources to create, maintain and upgrade its water infrastructure and to adequately promote water conservation in the face of increased demands on the precious resource.

In addition, the continued failure of sustainable agricultural practices and the promotion of economic growth in a business-as-usual and water-intensive manner have severely degraded South Africa’s water resources. All told, 48% of South Africa’s wetlands are critically endangered. Another telling example comes from the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the pursuit of economic development and social advancement has led to a rapid rate of environmental transformation. The rate of loss of unprotected natural areas is approximately 1% per annum, meaning that if it continues at this rate they (and all of the attendant services they provide) will be lost by 2050. Pushing back against these trends requires significant efforts on the part of many different actors. This will be, of course, a very difficult task.

Beyond technical deficiencies and economic tradeoffs, there remains a governance gap within the country that exacerbates the problems. The management of its water is largely disjointed and erratic. The various levels of government and the disparate non-state actors involved in water conservation and distribution are often arranged in Unsurprisingly, this leads to the multiplication of environmental stresses because stakeholders often lack technical knowledge, fail to adapt best environmental practices, contribute to spoiling common-pool resources, and contribute to social alienation from the natural world. This impedes economic development and hardens social cleavages between the rich, whose water flows freely and cheaply, and the poor, who suffer the debilitating effects brought upon by a lack of access to adequate water supplies. Thus, what is often lost in the discussion are the ways in which healthy ecosystems deliver valuable services to people. In essence, we are surrounded by ecological infrastructure.

The social component of South African water security combines with technical deficiencies and governance gaps to create a dangerous and environmentally devastating impact. This reflects the connections between environmental health with socio-political stability. Unfortunately, for South Africa, the picture is troubling. Non-violent resistance has been a common tactic, but even more concerning has been the recent exponential increase in violent protests over poor service delivery, privatization of service delivery, social marginalization, and the persistent inequality in access to water. One of the ways that could assist the country avoid further civil strife is to significantly increase sustainable environmental management and adjust its governance priorities to deliver upon the laudatory promises of its environmental legislation.

The Resilience of South Africa

On May 7^th, 2014, South Africans will head to the polls for national elections. This will be the fourth election since the fall of Apartheid, and the first for the “born frees” – the generation of young South Africans born and raised in a democratic South Africa. Most opinion polls indicate that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party will be re-elected by a sizeable margin, though its support has dropped significantly in recent years. This is due in part to widening perceptions that the ANC has grown entrenched in its own privilege, reflected by ongoing corruption scandals and ineffective economic policies.

As South Africa moves further away from the legacy of Apartheid, it must confront continued social alienation, the pervasive effects of deep inequality, and the monumental challenge of building ecological resilience and sustainability. As service delivery protests increase, it is clear how the social cleavages of modern-day South Africa often manifest themselves around issues of water, sanitation, the environment, and human dignity.

The latest IPCC reports are remarkable achievements for a number of reasons. Not least, they clearly acknowledge the continued connections between human and environmental security. In this sense they reflect the growing awareness that to build resilient societies means to invest in resilient ecosystems, and vice versa. For South Africa, in possession of arguably the most progressive water legislation in the world, this requires actively investing in the ecological systems that builds and sustains human dignity. This will require the country to reconcile its rhetoric with its practice. A tall order to be sure, but one that is absolutely crucial for the country to fulfill the promise of its recent past.

Cameron Harrington is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Global Risk Governance Programme at the University of Cape Town. His work is based upon research supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and therefore the NRF does not accept any liability in regard thereto.

Toxic remnants of war and their legacy of civilian harm is seriously under-explored as an area of conflict. There is a growing consensus that the current legal framework governing conflict and the environment is not fit for purpose – so how could new international norms that merge environmental protection with civilian protection come into effect? 

In his message on the occasion of the United Nations day on conflict and the environment last month, Ban Ki-moon repeated the disappointingly persistent observation that “the environment has long been a silent casualty of war and armed conflict”. While verging on cliché, the statement speaks to a wider problem about how the environmental impact of conflict is currently recorded, assessed and responded to. Inadequate data collection on the humanitarian and environmental impact of particular weapons or military practices makes determining their acceptability difficult, empowers polluters and acts a barrier to effective post-conflict assistance.

The toxic legacy of conflict

An Agent Orange spray run by U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. Source: Wikimedia

The health and environmental impact of pollutants is widely recognised in peacetime but this aspect of the public health legacy of conflict is often sidelined in the face of urgent post-conflict response. Pollution sources in conflict can range from munitions constituents to substances released through the destruction, or loss of control, of industrial installations or oil or power infrastructure, from the ubiquitous building rubble to the waste disposal practices and footprint of military installations. As pollutants are released, wartime disruption invariably sees institutional capacity for environmental governance, such as the provision of environmental services and regulatory control, diminished.

The net result is increased pollution and less capacity to assess and manage it. These toxic remnants of war may leave civilian populations facing acute risks from dangerous industrial compounds, or chronic exposure to pollutants in air, water or food. Some may be highly visible, such as the black plumes of oil fires or military burn pits; others may be invisible but incredibly persistent, such as the dioxins from Agent Orange.

At a time where toxics in consumer products and emissions from industry, transport and agriculture are increasingly scrutinised and regulated, the lack of attention on the humanitarian impact of conflict pollution seems like a curious omission. Even more so given that the experiences of Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, depleted uranium and more recently burn pits and metal-laden dusts, has placed protection from conflict pollutants firmly on the military’s agenda; as demonstrated by the US’s system of deployment health surveillance which merges environmental data on potential exposures with troop health records.

Modifying the legal environment

The norms and standards governing environmental, and by extension, public health protection in peacetime have left the laws of war far behind. Legal provisions for the protection of the environment during war and armed conflict date back to the 1970s, when international disgust at the conduct of the Vietnam War, in particular the use of the defoliant Agent Orange and Cold War fears over the use of environmental modification techniques, resulted in the codification of new international law.

The 1977 Environmental Modification (ENMOD) Convention and Articles 35 and 55 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions did serve to anchor the environment within International Humanitarian Law but it has become increasingly clear that the thresholds for unlawful damage are set too high and are poorly defined. In 2009, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) joined a long list of legal scholars calling for more progress in the field. They were followed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2011. Making the link between environmental protection and the protection of civilians, and noting the need for post-conflict environmental cooperation and assistance, they suggested that: “A new system could be introduced that is based on similar rules recently created for dealing with the legacy of landmines and other explosive remnants of war.”

While some member states at the ICRC’s 2011 conference did not respond enthusiastically to its proposals, the Nordic governments did take up the gauntlet, pledging to work on the issue of conflict and the environment and report back in late 2015. Following up on one of UNEP’s 2009 recommendations, the International Law Commission, which provides advice to the United Nations General Assembly, has also adopted the issue, initiating a three year legal review that will conclude in 2016. This renewed interest in the environmental and civilian impact of conflict and military activities is welcome, providing as it does a backdrop for engagement and debate, and with a consensus view emerging that the current legal framework is unfit for purpose, the search is now on for practical solutions.

How do you solve a problem like toxic remnants of war?

The scope of ‘conflict and the environment’ is vast, covering everything from climate change, to impacts on biodiversity, to natural resources and environmental sustainability as human security, and much else besides. Clearly, then, there is no one size fits all solution. The situation is complicated further by the low operational importance that militaries currently attach to environmental protection, in comparison to mission success and the survival of their personnel. Other nagging problems are the role of non-state actors and, surprisingly, how to define “the environment”, which as a complex system and one that has often been influenced by humanity is a more difficult question than first appears.

The reality is that conflict will always be environmentally damaging. Much of this damage will be subtle and cumulative – only a minority of incidents, like oil well fires, are photogenic enough to grab the headlines. This seems to suggest that pragmatic measures to minimise, assess and remedy harm are desirable. Happily, when it comes to conflict pollution, a constellation of peacetime environmental norms and standards are available as guidance. As the majority were established to ensure the protection of public and environmental health, the principles they contain are of direct relevance to efforts to increase the protection of civilians. Domestic and International Environmental Law are now being further reinforced by Human Rights Law, which is increasingly establishing links to the environment. Most notably, these principles are being forged in the field of participatory rights – through the right to know about contamination that may impact your rights to health, life or livelihood and to take part in decisions on its management.

The most cost effective way to reduce pollution is to manage it at source. In the context of toxic remnants of war, the diversity of sources involved requires that a number of parallel approaches be considered. This could entail stricter controls on the deliberate targeting of industrial infrastructure, perhaps by extending existing prohibitions on the targeting of sites that can release ‘dangerous forces’ and placing a greater onus on environmental considerations when determining the military necessity of strikes. Minimisation could also be achieved through greater environmental preparedness before conflict, something that Kuwait implemented prior to the 2003 Iraq War. Other measures could include more stringent controls on emissions and discharges from military bases, or improvements in the screening of weapons constituents.

Post-conflict environmental assessments are currently undertaken by UNEP. While robust, they often take place many years after conflicts and are dependent on the political interest and generosity of member states. To properly examine the environmental and civilian impact from conflict pollution, it is imperative that more environmental data be recorded. This will require that the number of actors recording data be increased, which in turn will require that the costs of data collection and analysis be reduced. Improvements to how it is then integrated into public health registries will also be required in order to establish harm and target assistance. New technologies are beginning to make this a realistic prospect and, coupled with mapping systems, would help challenge the cliché of the “silent victim”.

The final pillar of an approach that merges environmental protection with civilian protection is assistance and remediation. In this the ICRC’s 2011 study provides a useful starting point for discussion. Alongside monitoring and an obligation to assess damage and provide reparations, it also proposed new norms on international assistance and cooperation. ICRC’s proposal of a system akin to those applied to mines and explosive remnants of war is interesting and has parallels in the peacetime response to pollution incidents.

The Toxic Remnants of War Project is currently examining the possible structure of such a mechanism, based on the views of practitioners, civil norms and on historical responses to wartime environmental damage. The establishment this year of a new governing body for UNEP with universal membership – the UN Environment Assembly – perhaps provides a forum where a mechanism could be discussed in detail. Civil society also has an important role to play in efforts to reduce harm from toxic remnants of war. In 2015, a new NGO network will be launched, which seeks to ensure that the toxic legacy of conflict and military activities are minimised, assessed and properly addressed.

Doug Weir manages the Toxic Remnants of War Project (@detoxconflict) which explores state responsibility for the toxic legacy of military activities and the environmental and humanitarian impact of conflict. 

Featured image: An Agent Orange spray run by U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. Source: Wikimedia