Oil in the Persian Gulf War: Legal Appraisal of an Environmental Warfare.

Oil, modern history’s most “powerful” natural economic resource stood at the epicenter of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and became the latest unconventional weapon of warfare. The objective of this Article is to assess the legal implications of this recent environmental warfare involving the “oil weapon,” the first of its kind in recorded history. The experiences from national and international wars demonstrate one sure victim of wars, even barring human losses, is the environment. The delicacy of mankind’s planetary ecosystem necessitates urgency addressed to protecting the environment in the international struggle for arms control and disarmament agreement. This Article indicates Kuwait, the worst victim of the Persian Gulf environmental warfare, may sustain a claim against Iraq for damage resulting from Iraq’s act of environmental warfare. The reality is none of the existing treaties relating to this matter are satisfactory for dealing with the ramifications of the legal problems generated by this environmental warfare. In conclusion, it is strongly suggested the United Nations General Assembly, without further delay, adopt a resolution expressly condemning this Iraqi act of environmental warfare. It should condemn it as a war of aggression, an international crime, and a contravention of the principles and objectives of the U.N. Charter, international treaties, and customary international law. Certainly, it does not make for a good precedent for the United Nations to remain silent on this direct issue of environmental warfare. The United Nations should not treat it as an incidental matter if Iraq and other nations are to be deterred from committing similar crimes against the environment and the interest of mankind in the future

Earth System Governance in Africa: knowledge and capacity needs

Traditional approaches for understanding environmental governance - such as environmental policy analysis or natural resources management - do not adequately address the gamut of human-natural system interactions within the context of the complex biogeophysical cycles and processes of the planet. This is perhaps more so in the African regional context where the complex relationships between modern and traditional governance systems and global change dynamics are arguably more pronounced. The Earth System Governance (ESG) Analytical Framework encompasses diverse systems and actors involved in the regulation of societal activities and behaviors vis-a-vis earth system dynamics. The concept encompasses a myriad of public and private actors and actor networks at all levels of policy and decision-making. The existence of, and interaction among, these diverse actors and systems, however, is under-researched in the African context. Various research approaches taken to address crucial global environmental change (GEC) challenges in Africa have proven to be inadequate because they tend to overlook the complex interactions among the various local actors, players, and indigenous conditions and practices vis-a-vis GEC system drivers and teleconnections. Similarly, the regional peculiarities in terms of governance typologies and sociocultural diversity highlight the need for nuanced understanding of the complex interactions and nexuses among multiple actors and interests and Earth system processes. However, this diversity and complexity has often been lost in generalized enquiries. We argue that examination of the governance-GEC nexus through the aid of the ESG Framework would provide a much broader and more helpful insight