Nature and Nurture: How War Weaponizes Gender and the Environment

[Donna Cline is a US-licensed criminal practitioner and lead for the Environment Mobile Justice Team at Global Rights Compliance, where she works closely with Ukrainian prosecutors to ensure accountability for war crimes.

Julia Tétrault-Provencher is a Canadian lawyer (Quebec Bar) and international lawyer with the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Mobile Justice Team at Global Rights Compliance in Ukraine.]

Legal practitioners and scholars alike often remark that the environment is “the silent victim of war” (for instance here, here, or here). This saying is not without merit; thinking about the horrors of war does not immediately conjure images in our minds of contaminated soil or natural habitats that have been wiped out. When we hear someone referring to the victims of a conflict, news and mainstream media are typically sharing images of civilians trying to escape a conflict that has been thrust upon them.  The word ‘victim’ instinctually evokes images of communities forced to leave their looted or destroyed homes, displaced individuals being assisted by aid workers and evacuated by soldiers, or survivors speaking up about the crimes that have been committed against them and their communities, asking for their stories to be heard or for some form of reparations. 

Yet humans are not the only ones impacted by the atrocities of war. The environment too can be a casualty of armed conflict.  Active combat can cause forests to catch fire and burn, releasing toxic fumes into the air and destroying ecosystems and animal habitats.  Flotillas used to fire missiles into enemy territory can cause water pollution that endangers or destroys aquatic life.  Waterways are polluted by shelling and other conflict-related debris.  And the list goes on.

There was a time when the international community was outraged by significant war-related damage to the environment. Amid the fervor of the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, and in response to the extreme damage caused to forests and wildlife in Vietnam by the United States Army’s use of chemical defoliants (like Agent Orange), the 1970s witnessed the beginning of international law’s integration of environmental protections in instruments such as Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Prohibition of Environmental Modification Techniques (known as “ENMOD”). However, despite these promising steps, the enthusiasm faded as international criminal law urgently – and rightfully – shifted its priority to addressing the atrocities witnessed in the 1990s, particularly the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica. As a result, no criminal case has been brought at the international level for war-time environmental harm to date.

Yet, with the current climate crisis and the growing urgency to address environmental destruction, history seems to be repeating itself. Once again, States and institutions are turning to international criminal law as a way to hold individuals accountable for environmental damage, including for destruction that is not related to armed conflict. In September 2024, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa (island nations particularly vulnerable to environmental destruction) proposed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) be amended to include ‘ecocide’ – defined as “unlawful wanton acts committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts” (our emphasis) – as an international crime. Then in December 2024, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC published its Draft Policy on Environmental Crimes under the Rome Statute. This policy outlines “how the Office will use its mandate and powers to investigate and prosecute environmental crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction” while also contributing to the development of international jurisprudence on the prosecution of those crimes. 

States are also starting to pursue criminal cases for environmental harm committed during conflict:  Ukrainian prosecutors have issued an indictment for the war crime of pillage against an individual suspected of transferring rare animals out of the occupied territory in Kherson, and have also issued notices of suspicion against high-level Russian commanders for war crimes and ecocide stemming from the destruction of the Oskil Dam.  And in Colombia, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) recognized the environment as a victim of conflict and has allowed charges to be brought for war crimes against the environment arising from the failure of members of the FARC-EP to prevent damage caused by illegal mining and illicit crops.  These developments send a clear signal to the international community that the environment will no longer be the silent victim it has always been.

This progress is welcomed, as it paves the way for an approach to international law that transcends anthropocentrism and focuses on the intrinsic harm to the environment, without prioritizing humans’ interests. However, from an ecofeminist perspective, questions have arisen about whether drawing a clear line between environmental and human harms is necessary, or even accurate. In fact, the issue of conflict-related environmental crimes cannot be fully understood without acknowledging and taking into account the deep interconnection between humans and the environment. 

Understanding the Nexus Between ‘Conflict, Environment, and Gender’

It took data, studies, and numerous  academic articles to understand (and even acknowledge) that conflict-related sexual violence was much more than merely ‘collateral damage’ or the inevitable ‘by-products of war’, but instead used as a weapon to destroy the social fabric and deepen political and security concerns, inequalities, and gender-based violence among affected communities. The adverse impact of environmental harms on [often already existing] gender inequalities and how it disproportionately affects  people with intersecting factors and characteristics, including those who are pregnant and breastfeeding, gender and sexually diverse people, displaced people, older adults, or ethnic minority groups, is not yet fully understood. However, as found by the JEP in Colombia, there is no doubt that the environment has similarly been instrumentalized as a war tactic to dispossess, exploit, and destroy communities. In fact, from the limited studies that have started collecting data to better understand the impact of conflict-related environmental harm (see for instance here), its insinuated and differentiated impact on communities is concerning.

In Colombia, the Macro case 02 takes unprecedented steps by investigating among other gross human rights violations the “socio-environmental and territorial” harm suffered by Indigenous communities in the region as a result of conflict-related environmental damage in Nariño. Victims who spoke before the Special Jurisdiction Chamber for the Acknowledgement of Truth and Responsibility shared how the contamination of the environment by oil spills, criminal mining, and illicit crops impacted the general cohesion and wellbeing within local communities. Among other issues, the transmission of transgenerational knowledge among Eperara Siapidaara women, rooted in daily activities in the mangroves, could no longer be carried out. In addition, women who used to wash clothes sitting in the river reported vaginal infections, fungi, and scratches caused by the oil contamination of the water. 

In Ukraine, although research is limited, there is increasing awareness that Russia’s full-scale invasion has been reinforcing traditional gender roles and social inequalities, placing a significant strain on communities. The destruction of the Kakhovka dam has left an increased burden on care work for women and heightened the risk of economic abuse, including sexual exploitation. A 2021 study conducted in occupied and war-affected areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine found that 37.5% of female-headed households experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in comparison to 20.5% for male-headed households. This situation has only been exacerbated by the  full-scale Russian invasion, particularly due to the destruction of crops by military activity such as chemical pollution from mines and exploded ammunition and the disruption of supply chains. Pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as individuals with chronic illnesses and disabilities, have faced additional challenges in having their dietary needs adequately met through food distribution programs.

In the Occupied Palestine, despite Israel’s duty of good governance as an Occupying Power, the unlawful discharge of untreated or inadequately treated wastewater coming from the settlements is damaging the land and destroying the local crops. In addition to the potential irreversible impacts on the environment itself, including contaminated beaches and coastal water, it has detrimental health and socio-economic impacts on the communities and is directly affecting Palestinians’ connection to their land. Destroying the land becomes a direct attack to Palestinians’ social and cultural fabric when community bonding activities that build resilience  – such as olive harvests – can no longer be conducted. Recent studies have further shown that women and girls in occupied territories were disproportionately affected by the lack of clean water, impacting their menstrual health and posing a higher risk for pregnant women. 

Similar findings remain unfortunately scarce across the globe. Beyond anecdotal evidence or limited case studies, research is needed to understand how environmental crimes are weaponized and used as part of the general power dynamics and domination entrenched in all conflicts. To refine our current understanding of the nexus between conflict, environment, and gender, more resources are needed to gather disaggregated data and conduct analyses that take into account gender, age, cultural context, and other relevant factors.  One such area that may be ripe for analysis lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Years after the International Court of Justice concluded Ugandan soldiers were illegally exploiting DRC’s natural resources, conflict over these natural resources continues.  Yet, disaggregated data and research to better understand the impact of conflict mining remain scarce (or focus mainly on women), while the link between the impetus for the hostilities and the resulting impact on local communities remains unexplored entirely.

Nevertheless, these limited examples highlight how an intersectional approach to conflict-related environmental crimes is essential to truly grasp their roots and their long-term interconnected consequences. This approach should shape all aspects of the overall accountability efforts – investigations, prosecutions, and reparations – and influence how liabilities and crimes are defined.  As international and national courts and tribunals begin to develop jurisprudence on environment-related crimes, and with the potential adoption of ‘ecocide’ as a new international crime, it is imperative to include this approach now, so as to ensure the most robust development of the law.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Julie Fraser (Utrecht University) for her helpful review of a previous version of this post.