Protection of the environment under occupation: Scope and content of legal obligations of the occupier

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the problem of the protection of the environment on occupied territories. Due to the fact that the law of occupation doesn’t contain legal rules establishing environmental obligations of the occupying power, the environment on the territories under its authority often becomes a victim of the overexploitation and destruction. At the same time, it is suggested that the current international law, in particular, international human rights law and international environmental law, can be used to fill gaps in the rules of international humanitarian law. Certainly, the scope and the content of occupier’s obligations will be different depending on the instruments applied for the protection of the environment. The author concludes that the occupying state may be bound by its own multilateral environmental agreements, multilateral environmental agreements of the state which territory is occupied or both groups of treaties. A case-by-case approach to environmental human rights protection can serve as a useful tool for the concretization of occupier’s environmental obligations.