On 5 November 2001, the UN General Assembly declared 6 November of each year as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (A/RES/56/4). In 2018, with conflict damage causing severe environmental and human harms in states around the world,  58 organisations and experts from the fields of the environment, health, human rights, humanitarian disarmament and sustainable development signed a letter urging governments to increase the protection of both people and ecosystems by strengthening measures to enhance environmental security before, during and after armed conflicts.

For more information about International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict: https://www.un.org/en/events/environmentconflictday/

For more information about the Peace, Security and Conflict Specialist Group: https://www.iucn.org/commissions/world-commission-environmental-law/our-work/peace-security-and-conflict

About the Author

Professor Karen Hulme, University of Essex, UK, researches on issues related to the protection of the environment during crises, notably during armed conflict and post conflict, as well as environmental human rights. Karen has also worked with the Essex Business and Human Rights Project (EBHR) on a number of reports and consultancies on the environmental impacts caused by the extractives industry, including drafting legislative amendments and advising on human rights impact monitoring, and, in particular, on issues of environmental law and environmental human rights. In 2013 EBHR was commissioned to advise on necessary amendments to Afghanistan’s new Mining Code and Regulations for Global Witness, A Shaky Foundation: Analysing Afghanistan's Draft Mining Law, and in 2013 by Amnesty International (Netherlands) to advise on necessary amendments to Senegal’s (Gold) Mining Code in order to ensure compliance with their ECOWAS obligations. In 2009 Karen contributed, alongside the International Committee for the Red Cross, to the report for UNEP on Protecting the Environment during Armed Conflict: An Inventory and Analysis of International Law. And Karen frequently engages with the work of the civil society organisation, the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), formerly the Toxic Remnants of War Project (TRW). Karen has a range of scholarly publications covering topics such as armed conflict, security, environmental human rights and specific weapons, as well as focusing on issues related to climate change, biodiversity and oceans. Karen is working on a project on litter, including marine litter.